In the open letter he sent to Olivia Wilde this week – dismissing her claim that he was “fired” from her film Don’t Worry Darling – Shia LaBeouf mentions former romantic partner FKA Twigs just once. “My failures with Twigs are fundamental and real, but not the narrative presented,” he wrote, possibly referring to a series of claims the British musician has made against him, suing him for “sexual assault, battery, and provocation emotional distress’ during their relationship. “There is a time and a place for dealing with such things,” LaBeouf wrote to Wilde, “And I try to navigate a delicate situation with respect for it and the truth, hence my silence.” Instead, LaBeouf reportedly didn’t mention Twigs’ name at all during a new episode of Jon Bernthal’s Real Ones podcast tonight (apparently, the aforementioned “time and place” to break his “silence”), instead referring to her only as “this woman.” For example: “I hurt this woman,” he tells Bernthal during the interview, though he doesn’t seem to have addressed many of the specific charges against him. (LaBeouf formally denied all of Twigs’ accusations against him in 2021, when he filed a motion to have her case against him dismissed.) “And in the process of doing that, I hurt a lot of other people,” he added, in a similar vein to the comments which he did in December 2020, stating that he had been “abusive” both to himself and others, “for years”. “And many other people before this woman. I was a pleasure-seeker, selfish, self-centered, dishonest, indifferent, fearful.” As in Wilde’s letter, LaBeouf — who admits in the interview to infidelity and not disclosing STDs to sexual partners — cites the birth of his daughter as a moment of transformation for him. He goes on to call “that woman” a “saint” who “saved his life,” because “if she hadn’t intervened in my life and created the avenue for me to experience the death of the ego, I would have either had a really mediocre existence or I would have died completely.’ (LaBeouf also says, as elsewhere this week, that he considered killing himself after the allegations went public. “I went and loaded a gun and sat at my table.”) LaBeouf – who currently stars in Abel Ferrara’s Padre Pio – noted how this “ego death” came from his status as a member of the “tribe of the damned”. “I am a very public sinner, a very wrong person in the public sphere. What I think now is my purpose is not to… The other examples we’ve had of how to navigate something like that — which is go after the woman, or try to win a court case, or go back to a fucking movie, or would you like to come back’. (Padre Pio will debut this year in competition at the Venice International Film Festival.) LaBeouf presents himself as he is now as “a billboard for a principled lifestyle.” He also drew comparisons to Josh Brolin and Mel Gibson as actors who have been accused of domestic abuse in the past and tried to chart a course in Hollywood afterward. He also mentioned that he now has a “team” of “60 dudes” with whom he has weekly Zoom meetings and bike rides so he can get feedback on his actions, “in real time.” G/O Media may receive a commission Discount up to 90%. Humble Bundle Summer Sale Game and Save Great news for PC gamers out there looking to save money and add more games to your backlog that you’ll eventually get to. Humble Bundle has started its Summer Sale where you can save up to 90% on games. The two-hour interview is available on Bernthal’s Patreon. In a clip from the conversation posted on his Instagram, Bernthal (who starred with LaBeouf in 2014’s Fury and then 2019’s The Peanut Butter Falcon) weighs in on himself, apparently trying to carve out his own response to allegations, saying: “I don’t know what it’s like to put my hands on a woman or for a woman to say I put my hands on her.” He also says his role as LaBeouf’s friend is to make sure you “never do it again,” while also expressing his support. FKA Twigs made her allegations against LaBeouf in 2020. They currently have an April 2023 court date set for the lawsuit. If you or someone you know has been sexually abused, contact the RAINN National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-4673. [via Variety]
