Actor Shia LaBeouf’s bizarre stunts and behaviour have gained him publicity and landed him in jail in the past year.
Now the Transformers star is making news again, alleging a woman raped him in February during an #IAMSORRY performance art show in the Fairfax district of Los Angeles. During the five-day event, LaBeouf — clad in a tuxedo and wearing a paper bag over his head — sat alone and met one-on-one with visitors.
The 28-year-old actor told Dazed Digital that the woman “whipped my legs for 10 minutes and then stripped my clothing and proceeded to rape me” while her boyfriend stood outside.
“There were hundreds of people in line when she walked out with dishevelled hair and smudged lipstick,” LaBeouf said. “It was no good, not just for me but her man as well.”
His girlfriend was also waiting in line to meet with him because it was Valentine’s Day, he said. But word about the alleged attack, he said, travelled fast and his girlfriend soon found out. “When she came in, she asked for an explanation, and I couldn’t speak, so we both sat with this unexplained trauma silently,” he said. “It was painful.”
During the interview, LaBeouf did not say whether he contacted police to report the alleged rape. He also did not say why he waited so long to publicly speak about the incident.
Los Angeles Police officer Jane Kim, a department spokeswoman, said her office had not been alerted about any incidents involving LaBeouf. In any case, she said, police don’t report the names of rape victims.
Calls and requests to LaBeouf’s publicist for comment were not immediately returned.
LaBeouf told a female reporter with Dazed Digital about the alleged rape during a two-week email exchange. The two then agreed to meet in October for an hour. But they never actually spoke during the meeting. Instead, the two sat silently in a hotel room with GoPro cameras strapped to their heads while others filmed them.
LaBeouf’s erratic behaviour was famously on display when he wore a brown paper bag over his head on which he scribbled “I AM NOT FAMOUS ANYMORE” at Berlin Film Festival’s Nymphomaniac premiere.
In September, he pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct and was ordered into alcohol treatment after he disrupted a production of Cabaret in New York and had to be removed by police.
