The Rev. Bernice King, daughter of Coretta Scott King and Martin Luther King Jr., wants the world to know her mother was not a prop.
King, the couple’s youngest daughter shared a photo of her mother on X after Jonathan Majors compared his girlfriend, actress Meagan Good, to the civil rights leader in his first interview since being found guilty of assault and harassment.
This isn’t the first time he’s evoked Coretta Scott King or compared himself to Martin Luther King Jr. In an audio recording that was admitted during the trial last month, Majors is heard telling his then-girlfriend to behave more like Coretta Scott King and former first lady Michelle Obama. Majors’ statements have drawn ire and jokes from social media users, and prompted the response from King on Tuesday.
“My mother wasn’t a prop,” King, who leads The King Center in Atlanta, wrote in the social media post. “She was a peace advocate before she met my father and was instrumental in him speaking out against the Vietnam War. Please understand…my mama was a force.”
King has not responded to a request for comment.
A jury found Majors, 34, guilty of two of the four counts he faced — misdemeanor assault and harassment — last month in a case stemming from a March 25, 2023, domestic dispute in New York City in which Majors and his then-girlfriend, Grace Jabbari, got into an altercation in the back of an SUV. Majors said he was “absolutely shocked” by the verdict in an exclusive interview with ABC News’ Linsey Davis on “Good Morning America.”
When asked to describe his relationship with Good, who remained by his side throughout the trial, Majors said, “She’s an angel. She’s held me down like a Coretta. I’m so blessed to have her.”
The social media backlash was swift, with many criticizing Majors for appearing to reduce Coretta Scott King to a simple supporter of her husband rather than a civil rights leader in her own right. “Reducing Coretta Scott King to a ‘ride or die chick’ is pathetic,” one person wrote in a post on X.
Another added: “Coretta Scott King was not a sidekick. She was an activist before and after MLK’s death, mobilized Black voters & was a political force for decades. She was not a silent trophy wife. Don’t say you ‘want a Coretta’ if you don’t want a Black woman who will hold you accountable.”
Meanwhile, users flooded an Instagram post of Good at the gym with snarky comments such as, “Yes Coretta Scott King Majors. You better work” and “Thats right get it Coretta.”
King’s post about her mother amassed more than 12,000 reposts. She included a link to a 2017 HuffPost article she wrote about Coretta Scott King’s work as a civil rights leader and her life outside of being a wife. King wrote that her mother was a gifted vocalist, musician and a passionate civil rights activist all before meeting her husband.
“Before she was a King, my mother was a peace advocate, a courageous leader and an accomplished artist,” King wrote. “When my father, Martin Luther King, Jr., encountered her in Boston, he encountered a whole woman, a woman of substance, a woman who, as the traditional black Baptist church still sings, had ‘a charge to keep, a God to glorify,’”
Majors, who has repeatedly denied hitting Jabbari, said he plans to appeal the verdict. He’s expected to be sentenced Feb. 6. Majors told Davis in the exclusive interview that life has been “very, very, very hard and very difficult” amid the accusations and trial.
Majors has not responded to a request for comment.
The situation has ground Majors’ skyrocketing career to a halt. He co-starred in Marvel’s “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” and was expected to play supervillain Kang the Conqueror in the Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise, but Marvel Studios severed ties with the actor last month.
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