In February 2019, the statement says, he flipped a table and broke chairs in their apartment, and destroyed Ms. Duncan’s belongings and family heirlooms, during one of her many attempts to end things. Later that year, when she realized that Mr. Majors was continuing an affair, he “made a fist and stated, ‘Don’t make me punch you,’” the statement says. She left the relationship not long after.
His lawyer, Ms. Chaudhry, said that Mr. Majors denied making a fist or saying anything about punching or harming Ms. Duncan, and that he had “flipped his own flimsy fold-up table” during an incident. Ms. Chaudhry accused Ms. Duncan of slapping or hitting Mr. Majors across the face and head several times. She did not immediately provide details.
Ms. Duncan said her own account was “well documented.”
“I stand by the events described,” she said.
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MR. MAJORS HAD BEGUN DRAWING ATTENTION for his acting while he was still a student at Yale. After graduation, his ascent was quick, and directors praised his standout charisma, versatility and ability to reflect nuance.
In 2019, Mr. Majors began principal filming on “Lovecraft Country,” his first project as a lead actor. Though he earned an Emmy nomination, it was a difficult shoot, according to nine people associated with the production; the subject matter, which dealt with race in midcentury America, was heavy, and the episodes, with sci-fi and horror elements, were complicated, with grindingly long days.
In interviews with cast and crew members, they described Mr. Majors’s demeanor changing depending on whom he was surrounded by. He was often a buddy to male technicians and craftspeople, but to women he could be testy and prone to argument; women on set warned one another to tread carefully around him, multiple people said.
Jessica Pollini, a veteran with more than a decade in the TV industry (“Boardwalk Empire,” “Yellowstone”), came in for Episode 9 of “Lovecraft Country” as a first assistant director — a crucial managerial role that requires overseeing shots and staff for months.
She and Mr. Majors had only glancing interactions at first, she said. But as they were wrapping production after a long day, Mr. Majors approached her, saying, to her surprise, that they needed to talk. As other cast and crew left, he indicated they should go to the set’s cramped, faux bathroom, where he stood in front of her.
“I just remember him sizing me up and down,” Ms. Pollini said in an interview. “He’s a big guy, and I’m 5-3.” He told her sternly that things weren’t working. “He says, ‘You’re not welcome here,’” Ms. Pollini said, crying as she recalled the intensity of his dressing-down. She was unsure what she had done wrong and felt trapped. “I’m thinking, how am I going to get out of this situation?” she said. “I kind of cowered. I was scared.”
Eventually, she said, she placated Mr. Majors, saying she would try to do better, and he left. Ms. Pollini immediately told two colleagues what had happened. In an interview with The Times, one of them said that in all their years in the industry, he had never seen her shaken up like that.
They encouraged her to report the encounter to a producer, but she resisted, until she learned of other women who also had disturbing experiences.
Lisa Zugschwerdt, a veteran assistant director who was on “Lovecraft” from the start, said she had a negative experience with Mr. Majors early on, when he got angry over a schedule change that she was relaying. She tried to avoid him after that.
But before a sexual harassment training on set, Mr. Majors approached her while she was standing with another female crew member and “got really up in my face,” Ms. Zugschwerdt recalled. He made a derogatory racial remark about her looks, said Ms. Zugschwerdt, a woman of color.
Ms. Zugschwerdt was shocked — less by the disparagement than by the way he crossed physical and professional boundaries, she said, especially as she listened to the harassment seminar. “They talked about hostile work environment,” she said. In the days that followed, she worried about what else Mr. Majors might do. She left the show after a few episodes.
Ms. Chaudhry said Mr. Majors had not made a derogatory racial comment about anyone.
Multiple female crew members said that these sorts of incidents made it difficult for them to do their jobs.
Ms. Pollini and Ms. Zugschwerdt, along with a third female crew member, a production assistant, eventually complained about Mr. Majors to HBO, and the network advised him to apologize. He did so gruffly, Ms. Pollini said, saying it was “a misunderstanding.” But things did not improve afterward, she said. (A spokeswoman for HBO declined to comment.)
Ms. Chaudhry said that Mr. Majors had “never been told that anyone objected to his behavior.”
MS. DUNCAN AND MS. HOOPER’S RELATIONSHIPS with Mr. Majors briefly overlapped, though neither initially realized it.
When Ms. Hooper and Mr. Majors began dating, she said that he quickly expressed deep love for her but also became controlling, dictating where she could go, who she could socialize with and how she could behave. She was “not allowed to speak to anyone about their relationship, isolating her from a support system,” according to the pretrial statement. She became a shadow of herself, a Yale classmate said.
Ms. Chaudhry described Mr. Majors as “young and insecure” at the time of his relationship with Ms. Hooper. “Looking back, he is embarrassed by some of his jealous behavior,” she said.
Ms. Hooper got pregnant a few months into the relationship. When she told Mr. Majors that she had scheduled an abortion in two weeks, he insisted that she do it sooner, she said in the statement. Mr. Majors dropped her off at the clinic, where he was advised that Ms. Hooper would need an escort home, she said. But when she called him afterward to pick her up, he said he was heading to a rehearsal. Because she believed that Mr. Majors wouldn’t tolerate her discussing the situation with anyone, the statement says, she couldn’t call a friend; she feigned an escort and walked herself home. “I felt trapped and alone,” she said later in an interview with The Times.
Ms. Chaudhry said that because both Mr. Majors and Ms. Hooper were in the same show, they agreed they could not both miss the rehearsal, and that she would find her way home after the procedure. Ms. Hooper said they were not in the same show at the time.
“That deeply sad event is still a painful memory for Mr. Majors,” Ms. Chaudhry said.
In 2015, when Ms. Hooper confronted Mr. Majors with evidence that he was having an affair, he threatened to kill himself, her statement says. A year later, after they had split up and Mr. Majors learned that Ms. Hooper had a brief relationship with someone he knew, he phoned and berated her, her statement says, calling her a “whore” and saying, “I hope you die; kill yourself” and “I’m going to rip you out of my heart the way they ripped our baby out of you.”
Ms. Chaudhry described it as “a mutually intense conversation.” Mr. Majors “regrets saying hurtful things in that moment but does not recall the specific things he said,” she said.
Ms. Hooper wrote about the incident in her journal, which was reviewed by The Times. The lengthy phone call caused “residual trauma and suicidal ideation,” she said in the statement to prosecutors.
A Molineux submission like the statements by Ms. Hooper and Ms. Duncan is a contentious legal tool. Prosecutors successfully
used such testimony in the convictions of Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein, but it can help open the door to an appeal of a guilty verdict. At a pretrial hearing, Mr. Majors’s defense argued that the submission would be prejudicial to their client, and the judge agreed. The actor’s lawyers are seeking to keep the filing with the women’s statements sealed permanently.
To Ms. Duncan, secrecy is tantamount to shame. Coming forward, she said, allowed her and others in the same situation to find support and recovery. “I believe in redemption,” she said. “But not without accountability.”