The Man at the Center of MJ-Reza Feud Shares His Side of the Story (Exclusive)

He's only appeared in two scenes this season on "Shahs of Sunset," but Ali Ashouri is the guy at the center of all the drama.

Ashouri, who has made appearances on the Bravo show for a few years now, is the one who claimed Reza Farahan's husband Adam was sending inappropriate and sexual text messages. He relayed this info to Destiney Rose, who told Reza, leading to a sit-down between the three of them where Ashouri said he felt sexually harassed.

Though we didn't see their conversation, Golnesa "GG" Gharachedaghi later claimed Ali said Mercedes "MJ" Javid was the one who first called Adam's texts "borderline sexual harassment," before MJ was full-out accused of driving this storyline into motion as an attack on Reza and using both Ali and Destiney to do it.

So far, MJ has denied instigating anything, Destiney claimed she was used and Reza ordered everyone in the cast to cease contact with Ali. According to Ashouri, it worked. TooFab caught up with the part-time "Shahs" player, where he spoke at length about his alleged correspondences with Adam, his true feelings about Reza and Destiney and his hopes for the future.

"At first, it was obviously just a friendly conversation back and forth," Ashouri said of his and Adam's text chain. "He was sending me memes and just jokes. It was funny at first, I was responding. It was something that was just normal. And then it turned into being more sexually explicit, the content became more aggressive and it became more personal."

He said Adam started asking him about his sex life and/or interests and it got to "the point that it was making me really uncomfortable" and left him feeling like he was being "judged." Added Ashouri, "He was using these memes and sexual porn and the links that he was sending me to degrade me, make fun of me, call me all sorts of different names."

On the show, Adam said all his messages were meant in jest, with Reza admitting in an interview that they did contain pornographic memes and GIFs. While Ashouri says he has "a good sense of humor," he felt the messages were crossing a line. At that point, he says, he stopped responding as regularly.

Ashouri also said he wanted to bring this up last season, but waited because he felt Reza and Adam were already dealing with too many other issues, including their cat dying, their home being robbed and Adam dropping and breaking a $15k emerald Reza had bought for his mother.

After seeing how everything has played out on the show so far, Ali said it's "very, very complicated" behind the scenes. "There are people involved that are lying, that are not being truthful to save themselves just for the position of their show and their relationship with Reza," he said. Calling out Destiney specifically, he said they were best friends, before characterizing her behavior as "bizarre" as she shifted to Team Reza "to save herself."

He went on to call her a "scared and weak person that will do whatever she has to do to save herself with the show and her relationship with Reza." He also said he was "disappointed" in her actions and asked, "How do you live with yourself when you had somebody that was an amazing friend to you and you literally, within a matter of days just flip and completely cease communication and say all these negative things about me?"

Looking back at his lunch meeting with both Reza and Destiney, Ashouri said he "didn't go there to fight" and simply wanted to fill Reza in on everything firsthand. "He was very, very combative, very aggressive," he recalled. "And he lost control. And I knew that if I controlled myself and controlled my emotions, not react, then I'm the one in power in that situation and that's what I did."

He also criticized Reza for immediately calling MJ -- who was in the hospital at the time after pregnancy complications -- to try and figure out her place in this mess. "This is the kind of person that he is," said Ali, "He's very selfish. It's only about Reza. He's self-centered. He only talks about what's important to him, controls everyone around him so that he is always on top and always the person that's in control of everything."

"When he assaulted me is the last time I saw Reza," he alleged, saying most of the cast ceased communication with him after Farahan sent them all a text demanding they never speak with Ali again.

"Unfortunately, that worked for the whole cast," he claimed. "One by one, after another, when the text message was sent they all unfollowed me on Instagram. So I don't have communication with anybody. I don't talk with Destiney because she is showing me her true colors and showing me what kind of a friend she is."

He said MJ is the only one he still speaks to and, despite their "differences" right now, they're working on their relationship and are still close. "She's been there for me and I'm going to continue to be there for her," he added.

Following a nasty fight between Reza and MJ on last week's episode, MJ denied instigating the situation with Ali. While Ashouri says she "does have an involvement" with what went down, he added that "it's not like what is being portrayed." He also said his off-camera convo with GG was "completely misconstrued" and he never told her "MJ told me to say that I am sexually harassed."

"That never happened," he said, adding he was "stunned" when he saw GG make that claim on the show. "That's not what I told her. And you will see this play out in the season, I do have a lunch date with Golnesa that is crazy."

He's also adamant he was the one who first said he felt sexually harassed, not MJ, and claims she didn't even see the text messages firsthand. "I will release them as time goes by," he added, "Because I think that people need to see them for themselves to see how aggressive and explicit Adam was with me toward those text messages. Normal people don't talk like that."

Swearing he's a "a very honest guy" who hasn't been lying, he admits "it may not even look good for me to tell the truth because it does look like I'm shady or thirsty or whatever they're trying to make me look like." That being said, "I spoke about the truth and I've been I've been operating with the truth the whole time."

We also asked Ashouri about a recent interview Reza did with Entertainment Tonight, in which he said MJ may have orchestrated this whole scenario to give Ali a spot on the show. While Ali said Reza "has a lot of opinions and he's entitled to them," he says that's not the case.

"I was approached by production for two seasons, Season 7 and Season 8 to be part of the cast and I wasn't picked," he claimed. "But it's not MJ trying to put me in anything, you know? I genuinely have a relationship with my friends. I've been friends with them for four and a half years. I'm not this random guy that they just found that [Reza] claims to be 'That Ali Ashouri guy,' as he likes to say."

Ashouri said he would be down to appear at the reunion should he be invited and hopes to be there to "defend MJ." He added, "They're trying to put words in my mouth I didn't say," and said he wants to confront GG again about her comments about him.

"Shahs of Sunset" airs Fridays on Bravo.