Jonathan Majors trial: Grace Jabbari testifies against ex-boyfriend in domestic violence case

Grace Jabbari, the accuser in the misdemeanor assault case against actor Jonathan Majors, took the stand as the first witness on the second day of the trial Tuesday.

Jabbari, 30, wearing plaid pants and a plaid jacket, answered questions from Assistant District Attorney Kelli Galaway, appearing to take a deep breath and exhale as she began her direct examination.

"I am Grace Jabbari, nice to meet you," she said as she introduced herself to the jury. "I'm a professional dancer."

Majors, 34, sat at the defense table in a gray suit after entering the courtroom with current girlfriend Meagan Good, who has attended each day of the proceedings. He carried a cup and a Bible.

Majors did not appear to look at Jabbari as she described her dance training and career. Members of Jabbari's family sat in the front row, on the opposite side of the aisle from Majors' relatives and friends.

Majors, who has played the role of Kang in several Marvel films and TV shows, is accused of assaulting Jabbari in the backseat of a for-hire SUV on March 25 after she allegedly grabbed his phone when a message from another woman popped up that said "wish I was kissing you."

Majors has pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor assault and harassment charges. He faces up to a year in jail if convicted.

Jabbari detailed the night of the alleged assault, which she said occurred as they returned home from dinner in a for-hire Cadillac Escalade. She said her head was resting on his shoulder and they were chatting as he was scrolling on his phone when a message popped up saying, "I wish I was kissing you."

"I was so taken aback," Jabbari said. "I was so shocked. I never considered infidelity to be one of the things that was happening. So I was upset."

She said Majors denied the message had meaning but "he was just really alert like he had been called out," she recalled. "I was saying, 'Let me see the messages, let me see the messages.' So I grabbed his phone and turned away from him."

At that point, she said she "felt a heavy thud on top of me. What I knew to be the weight of him on top of me and him trying to pry the phone out of my fingers."

She described Majors pulling her right hand behind her back while holding the phone in her left.

"It just felt like he was twisting my arm and my hand and trying to make me feel pain."

When Galaway asked to describe her level of pain, Jabbari responded, "I had a lot of pain but my emotional state was only thinking about the infidelity. I was just thinking, 'Who is this girl?'"

Majors has denied her accusations and said she was the aggressor in the March 25 incident. The defense claimed Monday that Jabbari slapped, clawed and otherwise physically attacked Majors so blatantly that night the driver of their for-hire SUV called her "psycho girl."

Defense attorney Priya Chaudhry said during opening arguments Jabbari emerged unscathed and unhurt while Majors was left bloodied and ran to a hotel to hide from her.

Earlier in her testimony, Jabbari said Majors first became angry with her in December 2021 and detailed several instances of him being mean or aggressive.

Among the incidents was one Jabbari recalled from July 2022 when he started throwing things at her in a home they were sharing in West Hollywood.

"The first thing that he threw was the candle," Jabbari said, as she showed the jury a photo of the room. "The dent in the wall is one of the candles."

She used a pen to mark the spot where she was standing.

"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."

Jabbari often testified through nervous laughter, occasionally finishing her responses with a giggle.

"Is this a test?" she asked after Galaway asked her the ages of her three siblings.

Jabbari was movement director on the set of "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania" in Pinewood, United Kingdom, when she met Majors, whom she acknowledged seeing in the courtroom.

"In one of the breaks he came over to me, near-ish the monitor, and asked me what I was doing, why I was here and I said, 'Oh I'm a dancer, I'm working on movement,'" Jabbari testified.

She said his hair stylist slipped her his number and the two went on a date. The relationship progressed "fast," she said.

"We spent every day together, maybe minus a few, within the next few months," Jabbari said. "He told me he loved me very early on."

Jabbari said Majors would quote her poetry.

"I felt very loved and cared for," she said.

'It was the first time I felt scared of him'

Jabbari said the first time Majors became angry with her was in December 2021 when she was going to meet his dogs.

She said Majors gave her specific instructions for how to behave around the dogs. At that point, Jabbari mentioned how an ex-boyfriend had a dog and she said he became angry and raised his voice.

"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," she told the jury.

Jabbari also described a time in June 2022 when she went to a festival where cellphone reception was not very good and Majors was "not very nice" about it.

"Just that I shouldn't be there and how dare I go," she said. "You're just out there drinking with your friends and I had a really hard week."

He had been training as a bodybuilder for a movie, Jabbari said, and "he was quite stressed."

By September 2022, Jabbari was living with Majors in London while he was shooting a movie. She recounted a Sunday when she had been at a pub with friends and returned to the house with them.

"He was getting a bit snappy. Just quick with his responses," she said. Jabbari said she ushered everyone out of the house. The following day she said they met at a park when he accused her of being an alcoholic, tore headphones off her head and started shouting at her.

"Better not be in the house when I get home," Jabbari quoted Majors saying that day.

Jabbari broke down in tears on the stand after recounting the story and asked the judge for a break.

Upon resuming her testimony, Jabbari said she left the park and returned to the home she was sharing with Majors and started to pack but "froze" when she heard Majors coming.

"He proceeded to grab everything ... and was just throwing it, swiping it, moving it and throwing it, anything I had bought him he was breaking," Jabbari said. "I just said, 'You can stop, I'm leaving, just please stop.'"

She said it left her scared, upset and confused, and that he was "blaming" her because she "disturbed the peace, or something like that."

Majors demanded ex behave like Coretta Scott King or Michelle Obama in recording

The jury heard a recording Jabbari made with her iPhone of Majors shouting at her, demanding she behave like Coretta Scott King or Michelle Obama.

"I'm a great man. A great man. I do great things for my culture and for the world. ... The woman that supports me needs to be a great woman," Majors is heard on the recording saying. "Two nights ago, you did not do that. Which took away from the plan."

Jabbari said she understood it to mean that "he had to come first." Through halting sobs, Jabbari described what happened after he stopped shouting.

"I just kept saying 'I'm sorry' and I took all the blame," Jabbari testified. "I just took the full blame to calm him down."

She said she promised she would not tell anyone what happened and was left "quite scared of him and yet dependent on him."

After Majors would get upset with Jabbari, she testified he would threaten suicide.

"He said that he was a monster and that he wants to kill himself and he has put actions in place to do so," Jabbari testified while recounting one instance on Sept. 22, 2022.

She said she pleaded with him not to and tried to "make him feel safe and loved and secure."

She said Majors would blame her, say it was her fault he got angry in the first place.

"Maybe he would say that he was sorry, but rarely," Jabbari said. "I just felt like I was existing in his world and emotionally and physically and all these ways did not really feel my own autonomy."

In January, the two relocated to New York. Jabbari said she spoke to Majors' manager about his behavior because she "needed some support." She told the jury it caused Majors to stop talking to her for a couple of weeks.

If you are struggling with thoughts of suicide or worried about a friend or loved one, call or text the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 for free, confidential emotional support 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

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