Jonathan Majors faced the consequences of his actions—to some. To others, he’s on a premature redemption tour with Meagan Good, while Magazine Dreams, a shelved film with Oscar potential, finally gets released.
I love him as an actor, but abuse—physical, emotional, or otherwise—makes redemption hard especially when we’re just over a year removed from the December 2023 verdict.
And while Black people are often protective of our own, sometimes to a fault—justifying bad apples and brushing past their actions. Like I don’t know, giving Majors a Perseverance Award at the Hollywood Unlocked Impact Awards. At the same time, we also have a history of never forgiving a terrible mistake. Some of y’all are still calling for Will Smith’s career to end.
We don’t know these celebrities. We believe what the media tells us, we question our eyesight when videos surface, and suddenly, we’re hard of hearing when audio recordings drop. But this calculated media manipulation? That’s something that doesn’t sit right with me.
Magazine Dreams—a film directed by Elijah Bynum, starring Haley Bennett, Taylour Paige, Harrison Page, Harriet Sansom Harris, and Mike O’Hearn—is finally set for release on March 21.
Then, days before, Rolling Stone published newly unearthed audio of Majors in a recorded conversation from September 2022 admitting to strangling his ex. In the recording:
“I’m ashamed I’ve ever— ” Majors begins. “I’ve never [been] aggressive with a woman before. I’ve never aggressed a woman — I aggressed you.”
“You strangled me and pushed me against the car,” Jabbari responds.
“Yes, all those things are under ‘aggressed,’ yeah.” Majors responds. “That’s never happened to me.”
“Because I said something sarcastically, in your eyes?” Jabbari says.
“Well clearly, it’s more than that,” Majors says.
“Something inside of you,” Jabbari says.
“Yeah, towards you,” Majors agrees. The recording then ends.
(The statements alone? Narcissistic and manipulative. So if the goal was to turn even more people against him, well done, Rolling Stone.)
This audio was unearthed over two years after the initial March 2023 complaint and conveniently dropped the same week Magazine Dreams is set to release. And now? The film—already highly praised—is overshadowed by Majors’ actions. No one is talking about Elijah Bynum, the Black writer and director whose moment is being railroaded, or the cast and crew whose work is being drowned out by Majors’ controversy… again.
This isn’t about protecting Majors. He will have supporters, and he will have people who never forgive him. Personally, I don’t reduce anyone to their worst moment. But the way Black-led projects keep getting sacrificed at the altar of scandal? That can’t go ignored.
Nate Parker’s The Birth of a Nation was a prime example. It was set to be a defining film—an epic telling of Nat Turner’s rebellion. Then, just as it gained momentum and was a month plus from its release, Parker’s 1999 rape case resurfaced. The details were murky, he had been acquitted, and the case was decades old, but the media storm was enough to destroy the film’s success. Parker was judged in the court of public opinion, and his career never recovered. His situation wasn’t cut and dry—some stood by him, some didn’t—but the result was the same: the film, and all those who worked on it, were casualties of a broader media narrative.
Black films don’t get that chance. The Banker, starring Samuel L. Jackson and Anthony Mackie, was shelved right before its release because of allegations against Bernard Garrett Sr.’s son—a co-producer who was later removed from all promotional materials. The film had nothing to do with him, but it didn’t matter. The entire project took the hit. What should have been a high-profile theatrical rollout was scaled down to nearly nothing. Instead of a big cultural moment, The Banker quietly released in a handful of theaters before going straight to Apple TV+. A great film—one that told an important, overlooked story—ended up largely unseen because of a scandal that barely had any connection to it.
Contrast that with The Flash and Ezra Miller. Miller was accused of serious crimes—burglary, harassment, even endangering minors—but Warner Bros. did everything in its power to salvage that film. They enlisted Stephen King and Tom Cruise to sing its praises. The strategy wasn’t about defending Miller; it was about making sure the film still had a shot. And even though the movie flopped, it flopped on its own merits—not because the studio or media preemptively buried it. The list of accusations against Miller was longer than the film’s runtime, yet Warner Bros. made every effort to protect their investment.
No one is saying Majors should be excused. He did this to himself. But the way this keeps happening—where great Black films get torpedoed by perfectly timed controversies while white-led projects get crisis PR—shouldn’t go ignored.
Condemn Majors. Hold him accountable. But recognize that Magazine Dreams is more than just his film. It belongs to Elijah Bynum, the cast—Taylour Paige, Harrison Page, Harriet Sansom Harris, Mike O’Hearn, Haley Bennett—and the entire crew who put their work into something that now has less of a chance of being successful.
Our films should be allowed to rise or fall on their own. But too often, they don’t even get that chance.