Hollywood insiders on Jonathan Majors' future: Public missteps 'made a bad situation worse'
LOS ANGELES — Mark Anthony Neal knew Jonathan Majors was in deep trouble.
The chair of the African and African American studies department at Duke University was stunned last March when he heard that Majors had been charged with assaulting and harassing his former girlfriend, actor Grace Jabbari.
Like legions of fans and critics impressed by Majors' muscular performances in "The Last Black Man in San Francisco," "Creed III," HBO's "Lovecraft Country" and other projects, Neal feared it was a stunning setback for a talented Black actor who seemed to be on the brink of breakthrough stardom. And, given the long history of racist tropes about Black male sexuality in America, he knew the case would be inflected by the fact that Jabbari is white.
"My immediate response was, 'He's done,'" Neal said in an phone interview last month. "It was a bad look, considering not only the culture at large but also thinking about how Black Americans would respond. I felt it would be difficult for
