As the second day of Jonathan Majors’s domestic violence trial got underway, his accuser, ex-girlfriend Grace Jabbari, testified for the prosecution on Tuesday.
As reported by ABC News, the 30-year-old professional dancer, who met Majors in 2021 while working as a movement coach on the set of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, alleged that the actor was prone to aggressive behavior long before the alleged domestic dispute that led to misdemeanor charges of assault and harassment against Majors.
Majors was arrested on March 25 after Jabbari was treated at a hospital for “minor injuries to her head and neck,” according to authorities. Prosecutors say Jabbari was riding in a vehicle with Majors when she grabbed his phone from him after seeing a text message that said, “Wish I was kissing you right now,” sent by a woman listed in the actor’s phone as “Cleopatra.” Majors has pleaded not guilty to all counts against him.
Majors later filed a counter domestic incident report against his accuser, as first reported by Insider in June. The NYPD arrested Jabbari on October 25 based on charges of misdemeanor assault and criminal mischief, but the Manhattan district attorney’s office declined to pursue a case “because it lack[ed] prosecutorial merit,” the office said in a statement in October.
Jabbari testified that after the pair’s first date, their courtship progressed quickly. “We spent every day together, maybe minus a few, within the next few months,” she said, according to ABC News. “He told me he loved me very early on.” During this period, Majors would write Jabbari poetry, she said, leading her to feel “very loved and cared for.”
But this “honeymoon phrase,” as Assistant District Attorney Michael Perez put it in Monday’s opening statements, devolved once the “defendant’s true self emerged,” he alleged. Jabbari alleged that Majors became angry with her for the first time in December 2021 upon her first meeting with his dogs. When she brought up an ex-boyfriend who had a dog, Majors allegedly raised his voice at Jabbari. “How dare I mention him,” Jabbari quoted Majors telling her. “It’s embarrassing to him that I dated him. His dog is pathetic. This kind of stuff. It was the first time I felt scared of him.”
Other intense encounters followed, including an alleged incident in July 2022 where Majors “just exploded, is the word I would use to describe it,” Jabbari testified, according to ABC News. “It was violent temper, rage, a bit of aggression.” At one point, Majors allegedly threw a candle at the wall, leaving a dent. A photograph of the dent in the wall was shown to jurors. “I took the photo because the shift in his temper was something that I was aware of,” Jabbari said. “I just wanted to remember. I know I kept forgiving him, but I wanted to have a bit of a memory of it.”