Jonathan Majors is “heartbroken” over Marvel’s return to Robert Downey Jr.

Just as the internet was really getting going (rightfully) making fun of Robert Downey Jr.’s enormous new Marvel paycheck, Jonathan Majors had to pop in to remind people who the original villain was—both literally and figuratively. After all, Marvel probably would never have brought Downey back to play new character Doctor Doom in the first place if it wasn’t for Majors’ two misdemeanor counts of reckless assault and harassment, which earned him a swift boot from his role as Marvel’s next big bad, Kang. 

While Majors’ villain was originally set to anchor the next phase of the MCU, the struggling studio announced its big gambit—namely, replacing the planned film Avengers: The Kang Dynasty with the Russo Brothers-directed Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars—at Comic-Con last week. A lot of people were bummed upon hearing the news: Where was the risk? The new direction the studio so desperately needed? However, we’d go out on a limb and say very, very few of those disappointed fans were frustrated for the same reasons as Majors, who recently shared his take on the whole situation with TMZ. 

“Yeah, heartbroken… of course,” Majors answered when a street interviewer asked if he was “hurt with the new direction that Marvel’s going in.” “I love Kang,” he continued. “Doctor Doom is wicked, though.”

The interviewer continued by citing the fact that Downey as well as the DCU’s Ezra Miller, who plays The Flash, “have had a history of trouble with the law and getting arrested for felonies,” and asked Majors if he felt it was “unfair” that he wasn’t being given the same opportunities since he “only had a misdemeanor.” Majors answered, “I think it’s fair that Mr. Downey is being and has been greeted with patience and curiosity and love… and [he’s] being allowed to work [his] art and be creative at that level.” He paused, then continued, “I didn’t really get that.”

While it is true that Downey famously came up against the law before beginning his stint as Iron Man in 2008, the two men’s offenses are pretty hard to compare. In 1996, Downey was arrested for possession of heroin, cocaine and an unloaded gun, and given three years of probation. He did face a number of other legal challenges before getting sober in the early 2000s, but most of them largely stemmed from his struggle with addiction. What’s more, multiple years had passed between Downey’s legal trouble and his casting in the then-fledgling MCU.

On the other hand, while it’s true that Majors “only” got a misdemeanor and no jail time for his actions, he was initially arrested on charges that stemmed from the physical abuse of his ex-girlfriend, Grace Jabbari, causing injuries she called “excruciating” in her testimony. In March, Jabbari sued the actor again for “battery, assault, intentional infliction of emotional distress, malicious prosecution and defamation.” “Majors has called [Jabbari] a liar at every turn and very specifically claimed that he has never put his hands on a woman, with the goal of convincing the world that Grace is not a victim of domestic abuse but instead a crazy liar who should be treated as such,” the suit reads. “Now that Majors can no longer physically abuse Grace, he has resorted to very publicly abusing her reputation.” 

No matter where you stand on Doctor Doom or the MCU as a whole, Majors’ role in all of this does bring one aspect of Downey’s casting into stark relief: no matter how anyone feels about a particular character or even the planned direction of an entire franchise, those considerations are never as important as what’s going on in the real world.