Jonathan Majors’ ex-girlfriend pleaded with the court on Thursday to see if she had to watch police bodycam footage of herself attempting to get help and “safely” exit her relationship in the hours after the Marvel star allegedly attacked her.
Grace Jabbari had already broken down on the stand while watching video of the actor repeatedly shoving her back into a SUV as she subsequently sought help from strangers on the street. “Do I have to,” Jabbari asked as she choked up and eventually took a brief break, according to The Daily Beast. It was the professional dancer and movement coach’s third day on the stand and the second day of a tough cross-examination. Already Jabbari, 30, testified that she wanted to tell the officers, “help me, please” but “felt scared to do that.” “I didn’t want to get [Majors] in trouble.”
But officers ended up arresting Majors the morning of March 25 when they allegedly saw injuries on Jabbari stemming from the night before. According to prosecutors and Jabbari, Majors allegedly wanted to make his girlfriend “feel pain” when he twisted her arm behind her back, squeezed her fingers and delivered a blow to the back of her head, before shoving her back into a car after Jabbari saw Majors receive a romantic text from another woman and grabbed his phone. As a result, Jabbari “sustained substantial pain, including a fractured finger, bruising about her body, a laceration behind her right ear, and a bump on her head,” according to court documents.
Majors rarely looked up at his former girlfriend as she recounted the night of the alleged attack and testified about their turbulent two-year relationship. Majors, 34, was charged with four misdemeanor counts of assault and harassment, and faces up to a year in jail if convicted. The Creed III and Lovecraft Country actor pleaded not guilty and has maintained his innocence.
Majors’ defense attorney Priya Chaudhry began her cross-examination of Jabbari by questioning her about her drinking habits, and if she was aware Majors was a devout Christian, wrote poetry and often carried around a Bible. She also suddenly asked Jabbari about a high school boyfriend who had taken his own life, causing a sustained objection from prosecutors and Jabbari to burst into tears, taking a brief break. The judge prompted Chaudhry to move along in her line of inquiry.
The question comes on the heels of Jabbari’s earlier testimony, where she alleged Majors would routinely talk of killing himself after their fights and calling himself a “monster.” Jabbari says she would plead with Majors to think of his family and shower him with love for him to calm down.
Chaudhry spent much of Thursday going point-by-point through the aftermath of the alleged attack, having Jabbari repeatedly demonstrate where she believed Majors had twisted her arm and where she had felt pain on her body. Chaudhry played various surveillance footage and had Jabbari identify and confirm each time she was seen using her right hand over the course of a two-hour period that night.
Jabbari — who already pointed to her experience as a professional dancer and once dancing with a broken rib — told the court she tried to not focus on the pain she was feeling, instead distracting herself by going dancing with three people who had helped her shortly after the alleged attack.
Chaudhry also questioned Jabbari over several minute details of the night, seemingly trying to test Jabbari’s recollection of events, including asking if Jabbari had lime with shots of tequila; how she washed her face that night; and which specific side of a car she exited from. At one point, Judge Michael Gaffey told Chaudhry not to be argumentative when Chaudhry asked Jabbari if the club was loud. Jabbari said she assumed so but she wasn’t sure, prompting Chaudhry to snap back: “Well, you were there, weren’t you?”
Thursday brought a close to Jabbari’s cross-examination testimony. During her first two days on the stand, Jabbari gave an overview of the couple’s tumultuous relationship that began after meeting on the set of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania in summer 2021. Majors would allegedly fly into a “rage,” attempt to control her behavior, throw glass objects around her, and routinely threaten to commit suicide in the aftermath of such incidents. Jabbari testified that she felt responsible for Majors’ emotions and grew increasingly isolated from her friends and family because she felt like she was “lying” by hiding aspects of her relationship from them.
The case is expected to stretch at least another week. Although Rolling Stone previously reported that prosecutors had obtained testimonies from several women who previously dated Majors, who have alleged he was physically and/or emotionally abusive to them during their relationships, it is unclear if they will make their way into the trial. (A dozen sources told Rolling Stone in June that Majors had a history of domestic violence with two previous romantic partners. Majors denied that he was ever abusive in any relationships.)It is also unclear if a London police report from September 2022 — which resulted in Jabbari receiving medical care — will make its way into court. London’s Metropolitan Police confirmed to Rolling Stone in November that there is an ongoing investigation into the incident that included allegations of “physical assaults.”
Before his March arrest, Majors was on track to have his biggest year yet, following the releases Creed III and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. He was also receiving early Oscar buzz for his performance as a lonely bodybuilder with violent fantasies in Magazine Dreams. However, Majors was quickly dropped by both his management and publicist teams in the wake of the accusations, and Searchlight Pictures indefinitely postponed Magazine Dreams’ December theatrical release. All that seems to be left on Majors’ calling card is Marvel, who was planning on centering the next edition of the franchise on Majors’ character, the multiverse villain Kang the Conqueror, starting with Avengers: The Kang Dynasty in 2026.
