Nearly one year after Shia LaBeouf and FKA Twigs called it quits on their whirlwind romance, the musician sued the actor for “relentless abuse” and sexual battery.
“It’s a miracle I came out alive,” the England native — real name Tahliah Barnett — told Elle in February 2021 of the twosome’s romance, calling their dynamic “calculated, systematic, tricky and maze-like.”
The Even Stevens alum and the “Cellophane” singer initially connected on the set of their Honey Boy film, which was released in 2019. They started dating in 2018 following LaBeouf’s split from now-wife Mia Goth. Us Weekly eventually confirmed in May 2019 that the Los Angeles native and Twigs had gone their separate ways. By December 2020, the musician filed her lawsuit, which accused LaBeouf of abuse.
“If you put a frog in a boiling pot of water, that frog is going to jump out straight away,” she told Elle. “Whereas if you put a frog in cool water and heat it up slowly, that frog is going to boil to death. That was my experience being with [him].”
She added: “I would say to him, ‘I really don’t want to watch [gruesome true-crime documentaries] before I go to bed. I’m sensitive, it affects me.’ It was so dark, and I was just like, ‘I can’t be totally immersed in this all the time.’ I was very intimidated living with him. He had a gun by the side of the bed and was erratic. [I never knew what would] make him angry with me.”
LaBeouf, for his part, fervently denied his ex’s allegations at the time, telling The New York Times that many of them “are not true” but he is taking “accountability” for his actions.
“I am not cured of my PTSD and alcoholism. 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,” the Holes star told the newspaper in a December 2020 statement.
LaBeouf — who eventually reconnected with Goth in March 2020 — later seemingly opened up about the now-exes’ allegedly abusive relationship, though he didn’t identify Twigs by name.
“I hurt that woman,” the American Honey actor — who shares daughter Isabel with Goth — admitted during an August 2022 appearance on Jon Bernthal’s “Real Ones” podcast. “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. … When I think about what my life has become, and what it is now, like what my purpose is now: I need to be useful. And when I look at this #MeToo environment, there’s not a whole lot of dudes that are taking accountability.”
If you or anyone you know has been sexually abused, call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673). A trained staff member will provide confidential, judgment-free support as well as local resources to assist in healing, recovering and more.
Scroll below for everything we know about LaBeouf and Twigs’ tumultuous relationship drama:
