The former fiancée of unbeaten boxing champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. was in Los Angeles Country Court on Thursday to file a lawsuit against the pugilist stemming from alleged multiple assaults, including a threat at gunpoint.
Shantel Jackson filed charges of assault, battery, civil harassment, defamation and false imprisonment. The violent incidents occurred throughout an 18-month period, from 2012 to 2014, according to her.
She attended a press conference later in the day accompanied by lawyer Gloria Allred.
"It is with a heavy heart that I finally realized that the only way to set the record straight, and to achieve justice for what he has done to me, is through the filing of this lawsuit," Jackson said.
According to the lawsuit, Mayweather first became violent with Jackson in August 2012, shortly after he was released from prison on a conviction involving another woman, Joe Harris, the mother of three of Mayweather's four children.
Jackson alleged that in that episode, Mayweather twisted her arm, choked her and forcibly took her phone to search through it.
She claimed she left the boxer in April 2013 and stayed in Los Angeles. At the behest of Mayweather, she rejoined him at his home in Las Vegas.
Not long after her return, in the same month, she assaulted her again, according to the lawsuit. Jackson claimed the boxer forced her to return her 17-carat diamond engagement ring at gunpoint, asking her, "Which toe do you want me to shoot?"
Jackson said in the lawsuit that Mayweather was violent with her as recently as February of this year. He prohibited her by force from leaving his Ritz Carlton in Los Angeles when she was tried to evade another argument with the boxer, she said.
Jackson also claims Mayweather violated her right to her privacy when he posted photos of her sonogram on Facebook and claimed the real reason they separated is because she "killed" their twins.
Allred said during the press conference that Jackson, indeed, was pregnant with twins in 2013 but had the pregnancy terminated. The lawyer did not elaborate on the reason.