Jonathan Majors’ ex-girlfriend sobs, abruptly leaves court during grueling cross examination
The British dancer who accused actor Jonathan Majors of assaulting her sobbed and abruptly left the stand Thursday as her ex-boyfriend’s defense attorney grilled her under cross examination in a packed Manhattan courtroom.
Grace Jabbari, 30, began sobbing and shuddering when shown police body-cam footage from the morning after the alleged March 25 assault, when cops discovered her lying half-naked inside Majors’ Chelsea apartment.
Eventually, Jabbari rose and faced the wall as she cried, and then asked the judge if she could leave the room.
“There’s no need to apologize, it’s emotional, if you need time let us know,” Judge Michael Gaffey told Jabbari when she returned to the courtroom after being heard wailing outside.
The sudden, emotional display came after Majors’ lawyer Priya Chaudhry had in the morning repeatedly played CCTV footage of the night in question — where Jabbari and Majors, 34, got into a blowout fight while being driven across the Manhattan Bridge — which also elicited tears from the soft-spoken blonde.
Jabbari said about watching CCTV of Majors allegedly picking her up and shoving her in his chauffeured SUV: “This is going to make me sick.”
The spat was sparked by a text message Jabbari said she found on the Marvel star’s phone that allegedly indicated he’d been cheating on her.
She accused Majors of battering her and leaving her with a broken finger and a gash near her ear, while the actor, who is charged with misdemeanor assault and harassment, insisted Jabbari was the aggressor and that he had to run away from her when the car got into the city.
Jabbari left Majors after the fight and had a booze-fueled night out with strangers at a nightclub before finding her way back to the actor’s apartment, where Majors discovered her the next morning and called 911.
“After having two or three hours sleep, that’s when I felt like I had been hit by a bus. I had severe pain in my whole body,” Jabbari testified.
Chaudry continued pressing Jabbari about being incoherent and unable to recall how she’d gotten hurt when cops initially spoke to her.
“Isn’t it a fact you told police you didn’t remember how your finger got hurt?” she said. “Isn’t it a fact you asked the officer why does everything hurt?” and “Isn’t it a fact you asked the officers ‘why are you here, what did he do?”
Even after Jabbari exploded into tears and took a break in the testimony, Chaudry didn’t let up — continuing to play the body-cam footage.
“I really don’t want to watch that video if that’s OK,” Jabbari said.
Without acknowledging Jabbari’s request, Chaudry asked her assistant to load the video up and pass the laptop back to Jabbari.
The line of questioning was so persistent and unrelenting, it appeared to make the jury uncomfortable. While Jabbari sat on the stand with tears streaming down her face, one juror shot her reassuring smiles, another winced, and a third dropped her head to her hands and breathed heavily.
Earlier, Chaudhry pressed Jabbari on the details of the night as footage showed her downing shots at the club, dancing and ordering champagne all while being apparently unaffected by a right-hand finger she claimed was broken by Majors at the time.
“It looks like I’m having a drag of a cigarette, yes,” Jabbari said while being shown footage from the nightclub.
“The cigarette is in your right hand, correct?” Chaudhry asked, which Jabbari confirmed.
“That’s you being twirled on the dance floor with your right hand, correct?” Chaudhry asked about later footage.
“Yes,” Jabbari said.
Elsewhere in the footage, Jabbari was seen using her right hand to cheers and down shots, to pull Majors’ credit card from her wallet and order a bottle of champagne, then hold four fingers up to the bartender to indicate how many glasses she wanted.
“I was full of adrenalin, really upset, and not focusing on any pain I was in, physically, at that point,” Jabbari said when asked how she was able to use her right hand so extensively with a broken finger.
There were also around a dozen times when Jabbari touched the right side of her head, without showing any signs of being in pain from the cut she claimed was there at the time. Jabbari said the cut was lower than where she was running her hands through her hair or brushing her hair behind her ear.
During testimony earlier this week, Jabbari said she told police she didn’t know how she’d been hurt because she did not want to get Majors into trouble.
Jabbari will take the stand again Friday morning.
