Actor Jonathan Majors arrives at court for a trial on his domestic violence case, Monday, Dec 4, 2023, in New York. Photos: AP
Professional dancer Grace Jabbari wiped away tears Tuesday as she told a Manhattan jury how her sugary romance with movie star Jonathan Majors turned sour when Majors unleashed rage upon her.
Jabbari, 30, said Majors was “very kind and loving” at first during the relationship, kindled in August 2021 on the set of Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania, a Marvel movie in which Majors plays the villain Kang the Conqueror. He wrote her poetry nightly, and left her handwritten notes, Jabbari said.
However, over time, she said, Majors’ behaviour drastically changed.
“He just exploded,” Jabbari said, speaking about a visit to Majors at his West Hollywood home in 2022, when he was working on the film Magazine Dreams, in which he plays a troubled bodybuilder.
Jabbari said she noticed that Majors was stressed and asked him to talk to her about it. She said he quickly grew irate and more incensed as he threw anything he could reach in her direction, denting walls and breaking glass.
“His face kind of changes when he gets into that place. He’s a big guy, so you just want to step back,” she said.
“It was a violent temper,” Jabbari said. “He was full of rage and aggression. He was throwing things, shouting in my face, throwing objects.”
Majors appeared in court Tuesday clutching a Bible.
Majors, 34, faces a year behind bars if convicted of misdemeanor assault charges for allegedly roughing up Jabbari on March 25 as they took a private car service on their way home to Manhattan from Brooklyn. Majors has pleaded not guilty to charges of assault and harassment.
Grace Jabbari, the accuser in the assault case against Jonathan Majors, leaves court after giving testimony, Tuesday, Dec 5, 2023, in New York.
Under questioning from Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Kelli Galaway, Jabbari, wearing plaid pants and a jacket, frequently wiped her tears as she struggled to get her composure as she told a jury of three men and three women of how she grew to fear the actor after he frequently started blowing up on her and became physically threatening.
The incidents were all part of the “cruel and manipulative pattern of psychological and physical abuse” that Majors inflicted against Jabbari throughout their two-year relationship, which Assistant District Attorney Michael Perez outlined during opening statements on Monday.
During Jabbari’s testimony, the prosecution played a recording she made of Majors shouting at her in one incident when he got angry after she brought her close friend over to their shared home after a visit to a nearby pub in September 2022.
“How dare you come home like that?” he raged in the recording. “My temper ... all that said. I am a great man! A great man. I am doing great things, not just for me but for my culture, for my world.”
Jabbari testified that Majors berated her many times, including when she went to the Glastonbury music festival in England with friends, when she brought up an ex in conversion, and when a ‘do not disturb’ setting on her phone meant she didn’t get notified when he sent her text messages.
He even threatened to take his own life, Jabbari said.
“He said that he was a monster and that he wanted to kill himself, and that he’s put actions in pace to do so,” she said.
She described how she internalised his accusations and kept the details of their relationship secret from even her closest friends and family. She walked on eggshells around him, tried to talk him down when he grew angry and felt the emotional whiplash of his apologies and expressions of affection that often immediately came after a episode.
“I felt like I was existing in his world emotionally and physically,” Jabbari said. “I didn’t really feel my own autonomy at this point... I had really low self esteem and I had lost a lot of weight. I felt really incompetent, but at the same time I felt really dependent on him because he was the only one who knew.” – New York Daily News/Tribune News Service
