Why is Jonathan Majors on trial for assault?

Earlier this year, actor Jonathan Majors was set to become the next great supervillain in the Marvel multiverse.

Now, the breakout star with major roles in films including Creed III and Loki is on trial for allegedly assaulting his then-girlfriend during an argument last spring and could spend a year in jail if convicted.

Mr Majors, 34, was arrested in March in Manhattan after Grace Jabbari accused him of slapping her, throwing her into the car after she exited it, twisting her arm and grabbing and injuring her hand.

He is charged with misdemeanors including assault and could be sentenced to up to a year in jail if convicted. Majors has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Prosecutors said it started when Ms Jabbari had grabbed a phone out of the actor’s hand after seeing a text, presumably from another woman, saying “Wish I was kissing you right now.” Mr Majors tried to snatch the phone back.

After the couple’s driver stopped the car and the pair got out, Ms Jabbari said Mr Majors threw her back into the vehicle.

Police said that she was treated at a hospital for minor injuries to her head and neck, which included a cut to her ear.

Mr Majors’ attorneys have maintained that Ms Jabbari was the aggressor during the fight and had scratched and hit him.

They alleged in court that police who responded to the scene did not interview Mr Majors and that Manhattan prosecutors have refused to review evidence showing he was the victim, The Associated Press reported.

Ms Jabbari was also briefly arrested by New York City police in November after Mr Majors filed a counter-complaint against her, but the district attorney’s office dropped all charges against her the next day.

The actor’s trial began on 29 November with jury selection. He entered a Manhattan courtroom alongside his current girlfriend actor Meagan Good, carrying a Bible and one of his signature coffee cups. He did not speak during the start of the proceeding.

Judge Michael Gaffey, described the brief arrest of Ms Jabbari as “very unusual,” suggesting that Mr Majors’ celebrity status may have played a role in the police department’s decision to charge his accuser three months after the incident.

“Did this only come about because of the high-profile nature of the case?” Judge Gaffey asked the court. “If this was an indigent, everyday New Yorker, would this arrest have happened?”

Before jury selection began, attorneys for Majors successfully sought to bar the public and press from the courtroom in order to discuss evidence in the case that has not been made public.

The attorney, Seth Zuckerman, warned the evidence could “taint the jury pool beyond repair for Mr Majors,” adding that his client may face “trial by newspaper.”

Judge Gaffey agreed, finding that the potentially “inflammatory” evidence should be discussed behind closed doors so that it would not be reported in the media prior to the start of the trial.

The Manhattan District Attorney did not take a position on the matter. An attorney hired to represent the press, Katherine Bolger, opposed the move to seal evidence, noting that the public had a right to know the evidence in the case.

Jonathan Majors starred in Creed III, the Marvel TV series Loki and the film Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania, and The Last Black Man in San Francisco. He was awaiting the release of another star vehicle, Magazine Dreams, which is now in limbo.

He’s originally from Dallas, Texas. He received his bachelor’s degree in acting from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.

While studying, he appeared in numerous theatre productions, including a production of William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, according to Rotten Tomatoes.

After completing his bachelor’s degree, Mr Majors went on to pursue a master’s degree from Yale University. He later became a part of the Chautauqua Theatre Company in New York before his film career took off.

His first on-screen credit was the ABC miniseries When We Rise.

Mr Majors has been nominated for a Gotham Award in the “breakthrough actor” category and an Independent Spirit Award for “best supporting male,” his biography states.

He is known for carrying a coffee cup on the red carpet and to media interviews, one of four he rotates through, as a symbol of his mother’s long-ago advice: “Don’t let anyone fill up your cup.”

Mr Majors is accused of attacking his former girlfriend inside a chauffeured car in New York City on 25 March as they rode to his apartment.

Ms Jabbari accused him of slapping her, throwing her into the car after she exited it, twisting her arm and grabbing and injuring her hand.

Prosecutors say that she was treated at a hospital for minor injuries to her head and neck, which included a cut to her ear.

The alleged victim told officers that she was assaulted and taken to the hospital with “minor injuries to her head and neck” after an alleged altercation inside the vehicle.

Lawyers for Mr Majors claim that it was the former girlfriend who assaulted the actor, and “not the other way around.”

He pleaded not guilty to charges with misdemeanour assault, aggravated harassment, attempted assault and harassment charges. The charges carry a year in prison if convicted.

In April, Ms Jabbari was granted a temporary order of protection, which means that she and Mr Majors cannot have any contact. The order is still in place.

On 21 June, Mr Majors filed a domestic violence complaint against Ms Jabbari.

On 25 October, Ms Jabbari was arrested on charges of assault and criminal mischief. The Manhattan DA’s office ultimately decided not to pursue a case against the woman.

After news of the allegations against him broke, Ms Majors was dropped by his management team, while the US Army pulled a number of advertisements featuring the actor from circulation.

He was also reportedly dropped from a forthcoming adaptation of the Walter Mosley novel The Man in My Basement.

Last month, The Independent reported that Marvel is reportedly “in crisis” and that the next batch of Marvel projects has reportedly been thrown into disarray due to Majors’s legal troubles.

Mr Majors was introduced as Marvel’s new “big bad”, Kang the Conqueror, in this year’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, which ushered in the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s fifth phase.

“Post-Quantumania, though, it seems like it’d be far more helpful to label the next batch of Marvel films and TV shows as ‘the Jonathan Majors phase’. He’s just that good,” Clarisse Loughrey wrote in her February review for The Independent.

But according to a report in Variety, Marvel executives, including studio chief Kevin Feige, gathered in Palm Springs in September to discuss “backup plans, including pivoting to another comic book adversary, like Dr Doom”.

“Marvel is truly f***ed with the whole Kang angle,” one dealmaker who has seen the final Loki episode told Variety. “And they haven’t had an opportunity to rewrite until very recently [because of the Writers Guild of America strike]. But I don’t see a path to how they move forward with him.”

Prior to the report, Walt Disney Studios removed Magazine Dreams, a forthcoming drama starring Mr Majors, from its release calendar.