FKA Twigs Sues Shia LaBeouf For Emotional Distress, Sexual Battery, and Abuse

[Hejira Pronounshe/him]

Just after Valentine’s Day in 2019, the musician FKA twigs was in a car speeding toward Los Angeles. At the wheel was her boyfriend, the actor Shia LaBeouf. He was driving recklessly, she said in a lawsuit filed on Friday, removing his seatbelt and threatening to crash unless she professed her love for him.

They were returning from the desert, where Mr. LaBeouf, the star of “Transformers,” had raged at her throughout the trip, FKA twigs said in the lawsuit, once waking her up in the middle of the night, choking her. After she begged to be let out of the car, she said he pulled over at a gas station and she took her bags from the trunk. But Mr. LaBeouf followed, and assaulted her, throwing her against the car while screaming in her face, according to the suit. He then forced her back in the car.

“I’d like to be able to raise awareness on the tactics that abusers use to control you and take away your agency,” FKA twigs, 32, born Tahliah Debrett Barnett, said.
 

“I’m not in any position to tell anyone how my behavior made them feel,” he said in an email to The New York Times. “I have no excuses for my alcoholism or aggression, only rationalizations. I have been abusive to myself and everyone around me for years. I have a history of hurting the people closest to me. I’m ashamed of that history and am sorry to those I hurt. There is nothing else I can really say.”

The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, says that Mr. LaBeouf knowingly gave Ms. Barnett a sexually transmitted disease. It accuses him of “relentless abuse,” including sexual battery, assault and infliction of emotional distress.
 

Karolyn Pho, a stylist who is another of Mr. LaBeouf’s former girlfriends, described similarly tumultuous experiences to The Times, some of which are also outlined in the lawsuit. Once, the suit says, he drunkenly pinned her to a bed and head-butted her, enough that she bled. Afterward, she began to grapple with the idea that he was abusing her. “So much goes into breaking down a man or woman to make them OK with a certain kind of treatment,” she said in an interview.

Presented with a detailed account of the claims that the women made against him, in interviews and subsequently in the lawsuit, Mr. LaBeouf, responding in a separate email, wrote that “many of these allegations are not true.” But, he continued, he owed the women “the opportunity to air their statements publicly and accept accountability for those things I have done.”

He added that he was “a sober member of a 12-step program” and in therapy. “I am not cured of my PTSD and alcoholism," he wrote, “but I am committed to doing what I need to do to recover, and I will forever be sorry to the people that I may have harmed along the way.”
 

Ms. Barnett said Mr. LaBeouf would squeeze or grab her to the point of bruising. But she did not go to the police, she said, first out of a misguided concern about harming his career, and later because she thought her account would not be taken seriously, and it would be futile.
 

Mr. LaBeouf convinced Ms. Barnett to stay with him in Los Angeles, she said, rather than move back to London where she and her professional circle lived. It was a step toward her isolation, she said. And he would often say that her creative team used her, a message that eventually led her to doubt them.

But living with him became frightening, she said. The lawsuit says that he kept a loaded firearm by the bed and that she was scared to use the bathroom at night lest he mistake her for an intruder and shoot her. He didn’t let her wear clothing to bed, and would spin a trifling disagreement — over an artist she liked and he didn’t, for example — into an all-night fight, depriving her of sleep, the suit says.
 

Her status makes her situation unusual, she said. But she wanted to share her story because it was otherwise so common.

“What I went through with Shia was the worst thing I’ve ever been through in the whole of my life,” she said. “I don’t think people would ever think that it would happen to me. But I think that’s the thing. It can happen to anybody.”

Source: The New York Times

Edited December 11, 2020 by Hejira

[ice bear Pronounshe/him/his]

Oh god that's more than just emotional distress

[joesuda Pronounshe/him/his]

Honestly that is horrible. Hope she is well now and I can't help but feel sorry for her as the relationship before with Robert Pattinson also was not the rosiest (his fans were racist and hateful towards her). 

[Cocaine Heart]

This is deeply disturbing and disgusting. I am shocked. 

[lavenderblondee PronounsShe/her]

I had no clue they were even together. Gosh, I feel so awful for her and the other women who have had to endure this. 

I really was hoping Shia wasn't a nightmare of a guy and he just had some demons to battle but it sounds like he's just a garbage human being. It's a shame. I hope he gets the help he direly needs and continues on with sobriety. 

 

[LaLa Pronounsshe/her]

Awful. I hope she and his other victims can find peace. 

This doesn't surprise me though, honestly. I feel like we've been hearing about his bad behaviour for years, although less explicitly I guess. He clearly needs a lot of help.

[PETTY]

wow he is a POS

[HeavyMetalLover]

This is so f*cked up and awful. I really appreciate her speaking her truth. Love to her and I'm glad she's no longer living in a dangerous situation.

[blankpaper Pronounsshe/her]

The Buzzfeed article about it has some more details, including that he brags about driving around and shooting dogs. The whole thing is so f*cked 

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/amberjamieson/fka-twigs-shia-labeouf-abuse-lawsuit

[Gone]

Jesus!!! I’m shook! This is distressing to read!

[Battle For Your Life Pronounshe/him]

Shia is  disgusting.

[Guest]

8 hours ago, Hejira said:

Mr. LaBeouf knowingly gave Ms. Barnett a sexually transmitted disease.

Absolutely vile and disgusting.

Shia now seems absolutely disgusting to me.