Whatever Happened To Shia LaBeouf?
Shia LaBeouf's trajectory as a celebrity has been wholly unique. He has gained and lost the public's favor multiple times throughout his journey from child star to controversial adult actor, writer, and artist. With plenty of critically derided films on his resume but also plenty of lauded performances in acclaimed films, LaBeouf's controversial status has less to do with his on-screen work and more to do with his actions behind the scenes.
Let's start at the beginning of his career and work our way forward, hitting all of the major controversies along the way. It's hard to deny that LaBeouf has some degree of talent as an actor, but his antics often overshadow his abilities. Many of his highest-profile scandals cross plenty of lines, while a couple of others go further into outright criminal territory. His worst actions are violent and rather disturbing, so buckle up as we explore whatever happened to Shia LaBeouf.
His days as a child star
Shia LaBeouf began his acting career in his tween years. His earliest roles were mostly in small, largely forgotten family films in the late '90s, like "The Christmas Path" and "Breakfast with Einstein." He found more success when he moved into television with one-off appearances on notable shows like "ER," "Freaks and Geeks," and "The X-Files." His real breakthrough came with his starring role on the Disney Channel series "Even Stevens," which ran for three seasons and concluded with a movie spinoff.
After his Disney tenure came to an end, LaBeouf spent a little longer working in family-friendly spaces, as with his starring vocal role in the Sony animated film "Surf's Up." However, it wouldn't be much longer before LaBeouf transitioned away from his child-actor image into darker and more serious roles. Some child actors manage to come out the other end as well-adjusted adults, but plenty of others are left somewhat damaged by their time in the industry. An ideal environment to grow up in it is not. While LaBeouf wasn't quite as young when he started as many child actors, he was certainly still young and developing throughout his first several years in the business.
Reinventing his image
As his career developed, Shia LaBeouf went out of his way to choose challenging roles at the polar opposite end of the spectrum from the comedic roles he was first known for. But before he went down the dark, indie route, he first landed in the blockbuster sphere. Titles like "Transformers" and "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" pushed him as a new leading man for big-budget spectacle-driven films. While their reception was often rocky, they were typically extremely successful at the box office.
His string of blockbuster hits gave LaBeouf the cache in Hollywood to pick and choose whatever roles he wanted. After several years as a mainstream leading man, LaBeouf made a major pivot. He made the bold decision to step away from the highly lucrative "Transformers" franchise and leave blockbusters in general behind. From 2012 onward, LaBeouf's filmography has been solely focused on smaller and more artistic projects.
After some recent scandals, a couple of duds, and a handful of years without any major titles released, some might have thought LaBeouf's acting career was over. In reality, LaBeouf's career is still in perfectly fine shape. Even though he was fired from the recent "Don't Worry Darling" (he claims he quit), his dry spell will be coming to an end with the release of movies like "Assassination" and "Megalopolis," from acclaimed creatives David Mamet and Francis Ford Coppola respectively.
His brushes with plagiarism
More than any other celebrity in recent memory, Shia LaBeouf has become inextricably linked to the act of plagiarism. He may have begun earlier, but the first time LaBeouf was caught in the act was in 2012, when a couple of his comic books were found to include lines stolen from authors like Charles Bukowski. In response to being called out, he stole the apology Tiger Woods had given after his cheating scandal.
After he made a sudden departure from a Broadway play he was performing in alongside Alec Baldwin in 2013, his personal apology to his co-star was later revealed to be plagiarized from an Esquire piece titled "What is a Man?" When confronted for stealing from the article, he responded by stealing the words of acclaimed writer David Mamet.
LaBeouf's acts of plagiarism grew bolder over time. He released a 12-minute short film titled "HowardCantour.com" starring the likes of Jim Gaffigan, Portia Doubleday, and Thomas Lennon. Fans of the short comic "Justin M. Damiano" immediately noticed that "HowardCantour.com" seemed an awful lot like a direct adaptation of the source material. The problem was that LaBeouf did not acquire the rights to the story nor did he credit the comic's creator, Daniel Clowes, despite lifting the plot, themes, and dialogue wholesale. Unsurprisingly, LaBeouf plagiarized his apology to Clowes in an insincere move that seemed to mock the idea that he had anything to be sorry for.
His 'I am not famous anymore' red carpet appearance
Shia LaBeouf's bizarre public antics often draw massive amounts of attention. Perhaps his most head-turning stunt was when he showed up on a red carpet with his face hidden beneath a paper bag bearing the words "I Am Not Famous Anymore." The incident happened at the Berlinale International Film Festival in 2014, while LaBeouf was there accompanying his performance in Lars Von Trier's "Nymphomaniac Volume 1." He had been tweeting the same words, "I Am Not Famous Anymore," over and over again for nearly a month leading up to the event.
At the same film festival, LaBeouf also made a spectacle of himself during a group press conference with other members of the "Nymphomaniac" cast and crew. After LaBeouf was asked his first innocuous question, he gave the seemingly nonsensical response: "When the seagulls follow the trawler, it's because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea. Thank you very much." He then left the press conference altogether, catching his fellow panelists off-guard.
Given his history of plagiarism, it might not come as a surprise to learn that this quote about seagulls and sardines does not originate with LaBeouf. Instead, the quote comes from football player Eric Cantona, who also confused people when he gave the same strange answer during a press conference before leaving abruptly.
His #IAMSORRY performance art
Many of Shia LaBeouf's wildest antics were actually carried out as acts of performance art. Even though he was the face of all of these performances, he wasn't the only person orchestrating them behind the scenes. At some point around 2014, LaBeouf teamed up with artists Luke Turner and Säde Rönkkö, and the trio was responsible for conceiving and executing all of his performance art stunts. They collaborated on his "I Am Not Famous Anymore" red carpet stunt before taking the same concept a step further with a piece they called #IAMSORRY.
A similar paper bag was placed over LaBeouf's head (though the eyeholes were large enough to see that he was crying this time) and he installed himself as an art exhibit in LA's Cohen Gallery. The full performance lasted for five days, during which time LaBeouf lived inside the gallery. Visitors to the gallery were let into the room housing LaBeouf one at a time while he sat in silence. The performance took a dark turn when one visitor severely crossed the line between art and crime. When speaking to Dazed, LaBeouf revealed, "One woman ... whipped my legs for 10 minutes and then stripped my clothing and proceeded to rape me." The incident was corroborated by Turner and Rönkkö. LaBeouf remained in character for the rest of the performance, even as his girlfriend visited him after the news of the disturbing incident reached her.
Causing permanent damage to his body for Fury
As LaBeouf worked to shed the stigma associated with child actors, he became known as a hardcore Method actor in his adulthood. Similar to how other prominent Method actors have taken things too far on occasion — like Jared Leto's frequent line-crossing antics — LaBeouf pushed many boundaries while making 2014's "Fury."
In an interview originally published in British GQ, LaBeouf's co-star Logan Lerman revealed that the cuts on LaBeouf's face throughout the movie were not makeup. He even caused the wounds right in front of Lerman without warning, with Lerman saying (via IndieWire), "He takes out a knife and cuts his face ... For the whole movie, he kept opening these cuts on his face. That's all real."
But LaBeouf's bodily transformation for the role didn't end there. He took things even further by getting a tooth removed from his mouth. LaBeouf told Extra that it wasn't a tough decision to have a tooth pulled. He said it helped him get into character, explaining, "I needed to do something, and that helped me." After having trouble finding a dentist willing to yank out a healthy tooth, LaBeouf told Jimmy Kimmel (per Indiewire), "So I got it done by some guy in Reseda next to a Radio Shack." Plenty of actors have permanently damaged their bodies for movies, but most don't do it on purpose.
He watched all of his films in one sitting on a livestream
Shia LaBeouf, Luke Turner, and Säde Rönkkö continued creating performance art pieces into 2015. One 30-minute piece titled #INTRODUCTIONS became better known for the one-minute-long excerpt "Just Do It," which went mega-viral as a motivational meme. That same year, LaBeouf also made #ALLMYMOVIES. This performance lasted for 72 straight hours, the entirety of which was livestreamed. The performance involved LaBeouf watching every movie he ever made from his latest ("Man Down") back to his first ("Breakfast with Einstein") while a camera recorded his unfiltered reactions whether they be positive or negative, or even falling asleep.
Both #INTRODUCTIONS and #ALLMYMOVIES were far less confrontational, incendiary, and boundary-pushing than LaBeouf's 2014 performance art pieces, and they provided a bit more to chew on and analyze artistically as well. It seemed the trio of performance artists were finding a suitable groove for their creative works, but LaBeouf soon pivoted in a new direction and wound up in hot water again.
His screenplay competition scandals
Although he had already made a couple of short films and a Marilyn Manson music video earlier in his career, Shia LaBeouf made his feature-length screenwriting debut in 2019 with "Honey Boy." The year before the film was made and released, LaBeouf did something with his script that a Hollywood star should never do: He entered it in a screenplay contest designed for emerging screenwriters.
LaBeouf entered his script for "Honey Boy" into the PAGE International Screenwriting Awards, which is a competition specifically designed for outsiders and newcomers to the film industry who lack professional connections. "Honey Boy" made it to the quarterfinals, which landed both LaBeouf and the competition itself in hot water with the screenwriting community for allowing him to compete.
Despite the outrage, LaBeouf did it again with his next screenplay, "Minor Modifications," which has not been produced at this time. He entered the script in the Sun Valley Film Festival's screenplay competition and, this time, he won the top prize. It is important to note that the top prize was $1,000, mentoring, and meetings with film industry professionals. These benefits would mean a great deal to actual emerging screenwriters, while they would mean absolutely nothing to someone as rich, established, and connected as Shia LaBeouf other than, perhaps, a boost to his ego.
His autobiographical film was fake
The controversies surrounding "Honey Boy" were not limited to its screenplay contest participation alone. The film was a major critical success and took home prizes from many film festivals. The plot about a child actor dealing with his abusive father was said to be based on LaBeouf's childhood, with LaBeouf playing his own father in the film. LaBeouf's deeply personal, autobiographical connection to the story was a point highlighted in countless glowing reviews of the film — but it was all a lie.
After touting the film as an autobiographical true story for years, LaBeouf admitted to making it all up in 2022. The confession came on the podcast "Real Ones" hosted by Jon Bernthal, whom LaBeouf collaborated with on both "Fury" and "The Peanut Butter Falcon." Despite painting his father as horrible and abusive, LaBeouf told Bernthal, "My dad was so loving to me my whole life ... He was always there." He added, "Here's a man who I've done vilified on a grand scale. I turned the knob up on certain s*** that wasn't real. My dad never hit me, never. He spanked me once, one time. And the story that gets painted in 'Honey Boy' is this dude is abusing his kid all the time ... I wronged him."
LaBeouf also admitted to sending his father an altered script that had all of the abuse taken out, in order to manipulate him into giving his permission to make the movie about him.
Tattooing his whole torso for The Tax Collector
After working together on 2014's "Fury," Shia LaBeouf and director David Ayer reunited for 2020's "The Tax Collector." Unlike their first collaboration, "The Tax Collector" was a total flop both critically and financially, bringing in only a touch over $1 million at the box office against a $30 million production budget. Despite being a complete failure, LaBeouf went just as hard with his Method acting and body transformations.
For his role as a hardened gangster named Creeper, LaBeouf made the decision to get his entire torso covered in tattoos (including the word "creeper" in all capital letters) for real. The same exact look could have easily been achieved with makeup, but LaBeouf insisted on doing it for real even though the tattoo is barely seen in the finished film. LaBeouf's co-star Bobby Soto also got a real tattoo for the film, though his wasn't anywhere near as large. One has to wonder if the film flopping left LaBeouf with any regrets about the permanent tattoo. The ink will surely be an obstacle for any future roles where his body needs to be seen, and there is also a potential liability concern, as there have been instances of tattoo artists suing production companies for featuring their artwork without their express permission.
Abuse allegations
Many of Shia LaBeouf's scandals could easily turn you against him, from his numerous brushes with plagiarism to his multiple arrests for being drunk and belligerent. By far the worst thing he has purportedly done, however, is the extreme abuse he allegedly put his former partner through. While dating Tahliah Barnett, better known by her stage FKA Twigs, LaBeouf reportedly subjected her to what The New York Times called a "'relentless' abusive relationship." The two met while filming "Honey Boy" in 2018 and were together until she built up the courage to escape the following year.
FKA Twigs ended up suing LaBeouf (at press time, the trial had been delayed to late fall 2023). His alleged instances of emotional, mental, sexual, and physical abuse included things like threatening to crash their car on purpose, choking her in her sleep, physically and sexually assaulting her on multiple occasions, intentionally giving her an STD without her knowledge, and more. After hearing FKA Twigs' story, one of LaBeouf's exes, Karolyn Pho, claimed that she had been through similarly terrible experiences with the actor.
LaBeouf initially denied the accusations, telling the Times, "Many of these allegations are not true." But he later seemed to change his tune on Jon Bernthal's podcast "Real Ones," saying, "I hurt that woman ... I f***ed up bad. Like crash and burn type s***." He also said that by outing him, FKA Twigs "saved my f***ing life," and that he planned to serve as a role model for principled living moving forward — which remains to be seen.
If you or someone you know is dealing with domestic abuse, you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1−800−799−7233. You can also find more information, resources, and support at their website.
He's an alleged dog murderer
One of the most disturbing facets of FKA Twigs' long list of allegations against Shia LaBeouf was his violent behavior toward animals. During the period of time that they were living together, LaBeouf began preparing for his role in "The Tax Collector." Part of his preparation involved buying a real gun, which he kept loaded right by his side of the bed every night. FKA Twigs said she was so afraid that he would end up shooting her that she began to "leave little clues" for her manager so they would be able to figure out what happened if he killed her, via Elle.
Beyond her fears for her own safety, FKA Twigs also claimed that LaBeouf was using this gun to shoot stray dogs. This was something that she said he did repeatedly and was proud of as part of his Method-acting approach to his role in "The Tax Collector." FKA Twigs told Elle that she confronted him about the dog killing: "I said to him, 'That's really bad. Why are you doing that?' And he was like, 'Because I take my art seriously. You're not supporting me in my art. This is what I do ... I'm in the character.'"