Jonathan Majors is on trial for domestic violence with his ex-girlfriend Grace Jabbari his accuser.
His defense team rested its case after one day of evidence in the Marvel star’s criminal trial, which began on December 4.
His former partner alleges that the assault took place earlier in 2023, but who is she?
Read all there is to know about Grace Jabbari and her accusation against Jonathan Majors below.
Jonathan Majors is on trial for domestic violence with his ex-girlfriend Grace Jabbari his accuser. Pictured: The pair together in September 2022
Jabbari (pictured) is a 30-year-old British professional dancer and movement coach
She took the stand from December 5 to December 8, beginning by detailing the allegation involving an incident on March 25, 2023 (pictured leaving court on December 5)
Who is Grace Jabbari?
Grace Jabbari is a 30-year-old British dancer born in Reading, England, according to her Russel Maliphant Dance Company profile, which adds that she pursued dance at school from an early age up to achieving a master’s degree from the Northern School of Contemporary Dance.
She is now a professional dancer and movement coach – a role which involves working with other dancers, actors and musicians to enhance the synergy between theatrics and the music behind it.
After graduating, she toured with ‘cinematic dance theatre’ company the Mark Bruce Company, performing in Dracula and The Odyssey.
More recently, her choreography and dancing skills have landed her roles in a number of movies, including with Majors on Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.
She appeared as a dancer in Barbie, Mission Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One and A Christmas Carol (2020), according to IMDb.
What happened between Grace Jabbari and Jonathan Majors?
The former couple got together in 2021, with this incident two years later spelling the end of the relationship.
Things got serious very quickly in 2021, Jabbari said, and early on she ‘felt very loved and cared for’.
But she alleged that in December 2021 he raised his voice at her when she mentioned an ex-boyfriend and, ‘it was the first time I felt scared of him’.
She added that during an argument in July 2022, Majors threw things at her, denting the wall with a candle, indicated by a picture she took of the room shown to the jury.
The main allegation made by Jabbari relates to an incident which took place on March 25, where Majors is said to have assaulted his then-girlfriend after she saw a message on his phone from another woman.
Majors was arrested that day and charged with assault after domestic dispute, while Jabbari was hospitalized with minor injuries.
She accused him of hitting her in the face, twisting her arm and grabbing her as they returned home from a night out when Jabbari saw the texts.
Majors has denied all allegations via his attorney, Priya Chaudhry.
The actor also filed a cross-complaint claiming that Jabbari victimized him, and also claimed that she scratched and hit him on March 25, but sustained her own injuries by falling down in his apartment.
Jabbari turned herself in to the NYPD on October 25, but the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office decided not to prosecute the next day, telling The Messenger that the charges lacked ‘prosecutorial merit’.
Her attorney, Ross Kramer, said: ‘Now Grace can move forward without having to carry the weight of baseless accusations against her.’
Pictures provided by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office show Jabbari’s injuries
The dancer alleges that Majors attacked her after she saw a flirtatious message on his phone, which she then tried to grab
Jabbari has described her former partner ‘peeling’ her fingers off the phone and ‘twisting my arm, my hand’
What has Grace Jabbari said during Jonathan Majors’ domestic violence trial?
Jabbari testified between December 5 and December 8, beginning by recounting an ‘excruciating’ assault, adding that she felt as if ‘he wanted me to feel pain’.
Jabbari said the evening of the alleged attack in March 2023 the couple were returning from a play in Brooklyn and had dinner and were driving home in a hired car.
As Majors scrolled on his phone, Jabbari saw he had sent a ‘romantic’ song by rapper D’Angelo to somebody.
She said: ‘A message popped up saying, “I wish I was kissing you right now,” or something like that.
‘He didn’t really say anything and the next message popped up: “Oh it’s not what it looks like.” I was like, “I don’t know how else that looks?” I was so taken aback.’
She described grabbing her partner’s phone to try and see what was going on, before he attempted to claw it back.
‘He was trying to pry the phone out of my hands. When that wasn’t successful he put his arm behind my back.’
Jabbari described Majors ‘peeling’ her fingers off the phone and ‘twisting my arm, my hand’.
‘Next I felt a really hard blow across my head,’ she said, making a swiping motion over the back right side of her head.’
Jabbari could not fend off Majors because he was ‘very strong’ and she ‘couldn’t move’ despite trying to slap his arms away- however, asked if she scratched her boyfriend, Jabbari said no.
Majors ordered the driver to stop and then turned around and pushed her back into the car, Jabbari said as the jury were shown security camera footage of the incident.
Majors can be seen lifting Jabbari up and putting her back in the car as she tries to get out before walking to the sidewalk and running away, with Jabbari following.
Describing what was happening, Jabbari said: ‘He was trying to make me stay in the car, trying to push me. My body felt very light in his hands so it felt just that he was forcing me to stay in his car.
‘I couldn’t work out why I followed. I wanted to hear – literally that morning we’re talking about when we’re getting married, the names of our children and he’s running away instead of saying actually I’ve had an affair. I was really heartbroken’.
In his opening statement, prosecutor Michael Perez said the assault came after Majors subjected Jabbari to months of a ‘cruel and manipulative pattern of psychological and physical abuse’.
The alleged abuse included throwing things at the wall and berating her for not living up to the standards of Michelle Obama and Coretta Scott King, the wife of Martin Luther King.
Majors has strongly denied the allegations and his lawyers said that Jabbari was the one who attacked him as they rode home, then chased him through the streets of Manhattan when he exited their car.
Jabbari did it in ‘revenge’ for finding out that Majors had been texting another woman, the jury was told.
The defence questioned Jabarri on December 7, asking how she was seen raising a champagne glass, searching her bag, and brushing her hair behind her ear with her supposedly-injured hand the same evening but Jabbari said she was unaware of the extent of her injuries until the next morning.
Ms Chaudhry also played police body cam footage from when NYPD officers came to Majors’ apartment on March 26 when Jabbari is seen saying that she does not remember what happened and does not know why the police are there, adding that she got sick in the bed when she was trying to sleep.
The accuser had previously said that she felt conflicted about calling the police as she ‘loved him still’.
On her final day of testimony, Jabbari said that in September 2022, Majors threatened to kill himself if his girlfriend went to hospital for an injury he allegedly caused.
She started to read a text exchange which began: ‘I will tell the doctor I bumped my head.’
District attorney Kelli Galaway went through the remainder of the exchange as Jabbari was brought to tears.
The specifics of that incident were not detailed for the jury, as Judge Michael Gaffney ruled it to be otherwise precluded from the trial, but allowed the text messages to be read to provide background and context for the March incident.