Singer files lawsuit against Labeouf
Singer FKA twigs filed a lawsuit Friday alleging that Shia Labeouf was physically and emotionally abusive during their relationship from 2018 to 2019, saying her experience was part of a pattern of terrorizing women for the 34year-old actor.
“Shia Labeouf hurts women,” the lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court said in its opening lines. “He uses them. He abuses them, both physically and mentally. He is dangerous.”
FKA twigs — a 32-yearold British singer and actress whose legal name is Tahliah Barnett — alleges in the lawsuit that LaBeouf left her in a constant state of fear and humiliation, once slammed her into a car, tried to strangle her and knowingly gave her a sexually transmitted disease.
An email sent to a representative seeking comment from Labeouf was not immediately returned, but in an email to The New York Times the actor said: “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.”
The two met and became a couple after Barnett was cast in “Honey Boy,” an autobiographical film about Labeouf ’s upbringing as a child actor that portrayed his father as abusive but loving. Barnett had a supporting role alongside Labeouf. After what the lawsuit described as an early “charm offensive,” Labeouf convinced Barnett to move in with him, leading to what the lawsuit characterized as a “living nightmare.”
Labeouf isolated FKA twigs from family and friends, demanding absolute fealty, and constant verbal abuse led to several physical attacks on her, the lawsuit claimed. He was ferociously jealous of everyone from waiters she was polite with to her ex-fiance, actor Robert Pattinson, the lawsuit alleged.
On a Valentine’s Day getaway in 2019, FKA twigs awoke to Labeouf choking her and she was paralyzed with fear, the lawsuit said. He later drove wildly and threatened to crash his car if she didn’t profess eternal love for him and she feared for her life, the lawsuit claimed. When she tried to get out of the car and get away from him at a gas station, he slammed her against the car, tried to strangle her, and forced her to get back in, the lawsuit said. When she was attempting to end the relationship and leave him the following month, he violently grabbed her and lifted her off the ground as she was attempting to depart, according to a housekeeper who witnessed the incident and was cited in the lawsuit.