Jonathan Majors’ ex-girlfriend Grace Jabbari repeatedly broke down in tears as she testified against him for a third day in his ongoing assault trial.
At one point Jabbari fled the courtroom through a side door, with her sobs still audible from behind closed doors.
Majors’ defence lawyer, Priya Chaudhry, had been playing Jabbari a surveillance video from the night of the alleged assault showing Majors lifting her up and thrusting her into their car.
“I really don’t want to watch it again,” Jabbari said through tears, as Majors looked on impassively from his nearby seat. “This is going to make me sick.”
The video capped off the fourth and most emotionally charged day of the trial against Majors, a rising Hollywood star who was arrested in March for allegedly assaulting Jabbari, his girlfriend of two years, in the backseat of a chauffeured car.
Prosecutors say the 34-year-old actor struck her on the side of the head and fractured her middle finger during a dispute that began when she read a romantic text on his phone sent by another woman. After the driver pulled over and the pair got out, Majors picked her up and threw her “like a football” back into the car, according to prosecutors.
Grace Jabbari leaving court in New York— (Associated Press)
On Thursday, attorneys for Majors played zoomed-in footage of the shoving incident for the first time, arguing that it undermined Jabbari’s testimony that her head slammed into the doorframe when she was thrown back into the car.
“There were multiple pushes, multiple injuries,” Jabbari replied. She has accused Majors of having a “violent temper” that culminated in her assault in the backseat of a moving car, an incident that was not captured on video.
Defence attorneys also played surveillance footage from a Manhattan nightclub that aimed to cast doubt on Jabbari’s claims she suffered “excruciating” pain and injuries during the alleged assault.
The grainy footage showed Jabbari in the hours after the incident dancing and drinking with a group of three strangers who she said offered to help after finding her distraught and without her phone on the streets of Manhattan.
Not wanting to be alone, Jabbari said she accompanied the group to a nightclub called Loosie’s, where she ordered a bottle of champagne and a round of shots with her new friends.
As she played a compilation of video clips from inside the club, an attorney for Majors peppered the accuser with questions about how she was able to use her injured hand for tasks like lifting a champagne glass, rifling through her bag, or brushing locks of hair behind her ear.
“I wasn’t focusing on pain. I was just trying to have a nice time,” Jabbari replied. “There were these lovely people there and I felt safe with them.”
It was only once she got up the next morning that she felt “like I got hit by a bus,” Jabbari testified. She was roused from her sleep by police officers who were called by Majors to break into the locked bedroom.
In body-camera footage played Thursday, Jabbari can be heard telling the officers that she and Majors had gotten in a fight but that she couldn’t remember the cause of her injuries.
She didn’t go into detail with the officers, she said, “because I was trying to protect him.”
Majors was arrested while Jabbari was treated for minor injuries at a local hospital.
“Things started coming back to me when I calmed down and allowed myself to not worry about him,” she said. “When I realized I escaped the situation.”
Jabbari returned to the witness stand for her final day of testimony on Friday.
Prosecutors showed her text messages from September 2022 regarding an unrelated episode while the pair were living together in London. The texts, according to reports, revealed that Majors warned against his then-girlfriend from reporting her head injuries to a hospital.
No further details of the incident were available, as they were precluded from being shown to jurors. However, People reported that a filing alluded to the incident: “medical records from London related to an incident that occurred in September 2022.”
“Did the defendant try to dissuade you from getting medical attention?” a prosecutor asked Ms Jabbari. “Yes,” she replied.
“I fear you have no perspective of what could happen if you go to the hospital,” Majors texted, according to the outlet. “They will ask you questions, and as I don’t think you actually protect us, it could lead to investigation even if you do lie, and they suspect something.”
“I will tell the doctor I bumped my head,” Jabbari replied.
“I will tell the doctor I bumped my head if I go,” she continued. “I’m going to give it one more day, but I can’t sleep and I need some stronger pain killers. That’s all: why would I tell them what really happened when it’s clear I want to be with you.”
The actor apparently threatened suicide if she proceeded to go to the hospital.
“Last night I considered killing myself versus coming home,” Majors wrote, People reported. “I need love too. Or maybe I’m such a monster and horrible man, I don’t deserve it. And I should just kill myself. In this way, my existence is miserable, I want to die.”
Jabbari replied: “I will not go to the doctor if you don’t feel safe with me doing so, or don’t trust me to. I promise you I would never mention you but understand your fear.”
Jabbari finished her time on the stand on Friday morning.
Additional reporting by The Associated Press
