Shia LaBeouf is trying to get his life back on track.
via People:
The 36-year-old actor acknowledged recently that he’s “hurt a lot of people” during a deep conversation on pal Jon Bernthal’s Real Ones podcast. Their conversation took place nearly two years after he was sued by ex FKA Twigs, who accused him of physical, emotional and sexual abuse.
“I hurt that woman,” LaBeouf told fellow actor Bernthal, without naming FKA, 34. “And in the process of doing that, I hurt many other people, and many other people before that woman … I was a pleasure-seeking, selfish, self-centered, dishonest, inconsiderate, fearful human being.”
“I f—ed up bad. Like crash and burn type s—. [I] hurt a lot of people, and I’m fully aware of that. And I’m going to owe for the rest of my life,” LaBeouf said, adding that he has a “long list of people that I need to make amends to.”
He also referred to his accuser as a “saint,” saying that she “saved my f—ing life” by holding him accountable. “Had she not intervened in my life and not created the avenue for me to experience ego death, I’d either have a really mediocre existence or I’d be dead in full,” LaBeouf said.
LaBeouf admitted that he had suicidal thoughts after the allegations went public: “I went and loaded up a gun and sat at my table, and was gonna kill myself.”
The Disney Channel alum said he hoped to set an example with his response to the abuse allegations.
“What I think now my purpose is, is to not do … the other examples we’ve had of how to navigate something like this,” he said. “Which is to go after the woman, or try to win a court case, or get back into a f—ing movie or like, get back on at all.
“My purpose, and I mean this with every fiber of my being, is to be instructive with my life, so that I can be an advertisement, like a billboard, for a principled way of living,” LaBeouf added.
FKA Twigs, whose real name is Tahliah Barnett, filed a lawsuit against ex LaBeouf in December 2020, accusing him of sexual, physical and emotional abuse, as well as knowingly giving her a sexually transmitted disease.
Although LaBeouf initially denied the allegations, he recently addressed FKA in a letter to Olivia Wilde published by Variety, in which he refuted the director’s previous claim that she fired him from her upcoming movie Don’t Worry Darling.
“My failings with Twigs are fundamental and real, but they are not the narrative that has been presented,” LaBeouf told Wilde, 38, in the email. “There is a time and a place to deal with such things, and I am trying to navigate a nuanced situation with respect for her and the truth, hence my silence.”
After announcing that he was seeking treatment following the accusations, LaBeouf revealed in the letter that he’s 627 days sober, referring to the past year as “my great humbling.”
LaBeouf and wife Mia Goth have since welcomed their first child, 5-month-old daughter Isabel.
Will you be forgiving Shia for his actions?
