The judge in Jonathan Majors’s domestic-violence trial handed the prosecution a win on December 8, ruling that previously sealed text messages related to a separate incident in September 2022 could be revealed to the jury. The texts from that month appear to show the actor discouraging his accuser, Grace Jabbari, from seeking medical treatment, though Judge Michael Gaffey said that specifics of what happened will not be allowed into evidence.
Jabbari read out the first unsealed text she received from Majors: “You have no perspective of what could happen if you go to hospital. They will ask you questions, and as I don’t think you actually protect us, it could lead to investigation even if you do lie and they suspect something.”
She then began to cry while reading the first sentence of her response: “I will tell the doctor I bumped my head if I go.” The prosecutor took over from there so that Jabbari could collect herself. “If I go, I’m going to give it one more day,” the rest of her response read. “But I can’t sleep and I need some stronger pain killers, that’s all. Why would I tell them what really happened when it’s clear I want to be with you?”
“I feel like you want to be together, as in to not embarrass yourself to everything you said to your friends and family,” another text from Majors read. “Last night I considered killing myself versus coming home. Last night you said you needed love and I tried to put my feelings aside. But I need love too. Or maybe I’m such a monster and I should just kill myself. This way of existence is miserable.”
Majors then told Jabbari that she had not been “full of love at all” that morning. “You could have given me a hug,” he wrote before threatening suicide and calling himself “a monster” and “a horrible man” who is “not capable of love.” Jabbari responded, “Jonathan you can’t say this. I’m going to have to call someone. I’m sorry for not hugging you this morning.” Toward the end of the text, she wrote, “I love you. So much.”
Majors is on trial on two counts of misdemeanor assault and two counts of harassment for allegedly assaulting Jabbari, his ex-girlfriend, in March after she found texts on his phone from another woman. While the prosecution claims Majors twisted Jabbari’s arm and hit her face, resulting in a fractured finger and a cut behind her ear, the defense alleges Jabbari was the one who assaulted Majors.
Prosecutors previously noted the existence of medical records related to a September 2022 incident in London in a filing, but the press was shut out from a hearing in which those records were discussed. Jabbari had also testified that on September 19, 2022, Majors had torn headphones out of her ears and stomped on them before breaking objects in his apartment.
The judge said that the unsealed texts were important context that helped explain why Jabbari was afraid of divulging information about the alleged assault in March to first responders. In cross-examination, Majors’s defense lawyer repeatedly pressed Jabbari about why she didn’t tell police who responded to the couple’s apartment and the doctors who treated her afterward at a hospital exactly what had happened between her and Majors. “The reason I wasn’t telling them initially about him was because I could hear him” in the next room, Jabbari said, “and I was scared he would be able to hear what I was saying to them.” She also cried when the defense played body-camera footage from the officers who found her asleep in a walk-in closet.
After reading the unsealed texts, the prosecution asked why Jabbari told medical professionals that she didn’t know how she got injured in the March incident. “I was scared of the consequences of it,” she said. “Still wanted to protect him I guess.”
In the U.S., the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline can be reached at 988 (call or text) or 988lifeline.org (chat).
