Here’s How Jonathan Majors Blew His First Post-Conviction Interview

Ugh. Where to begin with Jonathan Majors…?

Last week, I wrote about what I thought Majors should say and do following the revelation that he’d sat for his first interview since his conviction on assaulting ex-girlfriend Grace Jabbari. Well, any hope I had that he’d redeem himself was shot within the interview’s first couple minutes.

Sitting with ABC’s Linsey Davis might’ve made things worse for Majors ahead of his Feb. 6 sentencing, but it definitely made things worse for him in the esteemed Court of Black Public Opinion: Dude started trending for all the wrong reasons starting Monday morning when the first part of the interview dropped on “Good Morning America.”

It all went further downhill still later Monday evening when the full interview dropped. Let’s get into why Majors blew it.

It was possibly the best (and worst) acting of his career

Remember those tears Jussie Smollett squeezed out during his Robin Roberts “Good Morning America” interview? They demonstrated why we should never trust tears from people who are paid to provide them on command.

I can’t say that Majors’ emotions and tears were insincere, but the whole affair felt inauthentic. The side-eye was in full effect from the very beginning when he said, “A…lot has happened…*chuckle*…in my personal life, in my career.”

“Lovecraft Country” was dope, but I’m thinking this interview could net Majors his career-first Emmy win in 2025.  

He played the dumb role and took zero accountability

Majors told Davis that sitting for the interview is “about responsibility,” but he took almost none. He repeatedly conveyed that he didn’t know how Jabbari was injured, insisting that he only remembers her attacking him.

We’ve all seen the images of Jabbari’s bruised finger and that nasty laceration behind her ear…they didn’t form via osmosis. But when Davis asked Majors how they got there, he said, “I wish to God I knew. That would give me some clarity, some peace about it.”

Giving folks the impression that Jabbari accidentally backed into a buzzsaw ear-first was not the move.

Davis pointed out the fact that the jury didn’t drop the hammer on Majors with all four charges because they deduced her injuries were a result of him being physically reckless with her, if not pointedly abusive. His response to that is the only part of the interview that made me laugh aloud.

“I was reckless with her heart. Not with her body,” he said, ever so delicately. “I’ve never put my hands out and struck a woman.”

The problem with that statement is that Majors’ reputation followed him into the interview: His Yale University classmates aired him out on Twitter following his arrest last year, and Rolling Stone published a detailed feature in July suggesting that Majors is a not-so-great human when it comes to his dealings with women.

His victim-blaming hand was skrawng

I also wrote that Majors should go out of his way to not blame Jabbari – a bed he shat repeatedly during this interview.

Did Jabbari have some mess going on that she shouldn’t have? Absolutely – Majors had his own injuries that look like they might’ve stemmed from a pissed-off woman, and we all saw her chase him from Harlem to Newfoundland on foot. She was arrested for good reason.

But no one is convinced that the dynamic between Majors and Jabbari was that of a violent, foul temptress the size of a Starbucks Venti coffee cup from whom he had to constantly physically defend himself while he was in “Creed III” shape. Black folks don’t even believe that, so you know white folks don’t.

“If you watch those videos, and you reverse that, and you saw a Black man chasing a young white girl down the street screaming and crying, that black man will be shot dead in the streets of New York City,” Majors said.

I’m sure Dr. Umar Johnson loved that statement, but if whole articles about victim blaming are being written about your interview, you know you f***ed up, right?

Even uttering a word that rhymes with “Beretta”

I wrote that Majors should’ve played up the Meagan Good angle, which he did. But in doing so, he made a fatal error that has his woebegotten ass viral right now.

Davis asked Majors how he would describe his relationship with Good. His response: “She’s a miracle, she’s an angel, she held me down…like a Coretta. I’m so blessed to have her.”

She’d already asked Majors (very tactfully) why he’d expect this 30-year-old white lady from Great Britain to comport herself like our revered Black wives. He should’ve done what he could to leave it there, but he had to evoke Coretta Scott King’s name again on his own.

The camera panned on Good watching the interview with a mixture of empathy and incredulity that he would compare her to a woman that neither of them likely know much about.

He shouldn’t have done the interview in the first place

Majors’ first mistake – and the most glaring example of the hubris that has guided him right into a brick wall in the last 10 months – is sitting for an interview so soon after the conviction and before his sentencing.

Being on the wrong end of a major scandal generally requires going dark for a while to give folks time to forgive and maybe forget. For example, Aziz Ansari had that dicey date in the middle of the #MeToo reckoning and had to sit down for a whole year, even though he wasn’t charged with a crime.

That’s what Majors should’ve done. But he’s clearly in his Kanye West-esque going-rogue bag, exercising the same terrible judgment that motivated him to take his mess to open court instead of settling. He either has no good people in his ear or he’s ignoring them all.

Jabbari’s lawyers responded to the interview: “The timing of these new statements demonstrates a clear lack of remorse of the actions for which he was found guilty and should make the sentencing decisions fairly easy for the court.”

When Majors said, “That quote-unquote guilty verdict,” it was like he was begging for a harsher sentence. If they decide to cook his ignorant ass on Feb. 6, you can bet this interview will be to blame.