Majors urged ex-girlfriend not to seek help after head injury, jury hears

Actor Jonathan Majors begged his former girlfriend not to seek medical help after she suffered a head injury in an unspecified incident in London last year, telling her: “I’m afraid you have no idea of ​​what could happen if you go to the hospital.”

The comment was one of several included in previously undisclosed text messages that were read into the record Friday when Mr. Majors, Grace Jabbari, concluded her testimony during the actor’s assault trial in Manhattan state court.

Mr Majors was charged with assault and harassment in March. Prosecutors say he attacked Ms. Jabbari during a car ride to his home, punching her in the face, violently grabbing her hand and throwing her back into the car after she got out of the vehicle.

Majors was a rising Hollywood star at the time of his arrest and saw his career stagnate in the months that followed. He has taken the unusual step of going to trial for a crime in an attempt to prove his innocence and save his professional reputation.

The text exchanges disclosed in court Friday took place in September 2022, about six months before the altercation that led to the charges Majors now faces. His lawyer has argued that the actor was the victim of the attack, and not the aggressor.

Details of the incident leading up to the texts, which were shown on a screen in the courtroom as Ms Jabbari testified, were not made public.

But in a court filing in October, prosecutors cited a London Metropolitan Police report that “contained medical records from London related to an incident that occurred in September 2022.” Ms. Jabbari testified that she and Mr. Majors were living together in London at the time.

On Friday, Ms. Jabbari began reading the texts to the jury. She only got through a few lines before she started crying. A prosecutor, Kelli Galaway, continued the recitation.

Referring to whether Ms Jabbari should seek treatment in a hospital, Mr Majors wrote to her that “they will ask you questions, and because I don’t think you are actually protecting us, this could lead to an investigation even if you lies. and they suspect something.”

Mr Jabbari responded that she could not sleep, that she needed stronger painkillers and that she would say she had hit her head when she eventually had to go to hospital.

“Why should I tell them what really happened when it’s clear I want to be with you,” she wrote, adding that she wouldn’t go to a hospital if Mr. Majors didn’t feel safe doing so.

In another text read out in court, Mr Majors wrote to Ms Jabbari that the night before he had “considered killing himself rather than going home”.

The judge overseeing the case, Michael Gaffey, had ruled before Ms. Jabbari took the witness stand that prosecutors could not introduce the text messages as evidence at trial. But a series of questions by Mr Majors’ lawyer Priya Chaudhry during cross-examination on Thursday had “opened the door” for the texts to be admitted.

During that questioning, Ms. Jabbari said she had tried to protect Mr. Majors when she did not give doctors at Bellevue Hospital full details about the cause of the injuries she suffered during the March altercation.

“I was afraid of the consequences,” she said in response to a question from Ms Galaway. “What I would say and how it would affect him.”

Prosecutors said during their opening statement this week that Mr. Majors had abused Ms. Jabbari throughout their relationship.

Early in her testimony, Ms. Jabbari described more than a half-dozen episodes that she said began in December 2021, several months into her relationship with Mr. Majors, including one in which he threw a candle at her and dented her face made. wall near where she stood.