Actor Shia LaBeouf is reportedly heading to rehab as part of his new bail conditions after an altercation during Mardi Gras in New Orleans landed him in a legal situation. The Transformers star appeared in court on February 26, where a judge ordered him to seek substance abuse treatment and submit to weekly drug testing following his arrest on two counts of battery.
Reports say a judge has ordered Shia LaBeouf to rehab after Mardi Gras arrest
Orleans Parish Criminal Court Judge Simone Levine reportedly mandated that Shia LaBeouf enroll in a rehabilitation program and post a $100,000 bond to remain out of custody while his case proceeds. The judge also required the actor to undergo immediate drug testing, which his attorney later confirmed showed no illegal substances in his system at the time.
The court date comes just over a week after LaBeouf was taken into custody during the city’s Mardi Gras festivities. Police responded to reports of a disturbance at the Royal Street Inn & R Bar in the early morning hours of February 17, where staff had removed him for aggressive behavior. According to the incident report, the actor allegedly returned to the bar and struck multiple people.
During Thursday’s hearing, Judge Levine expressed serious concerns about the nature of the allegations, particularly reports that LaBeouf used homophobic slurs during the incident. The police report reportedly claims the actor allegedly targeted two men with derogatory language while striking them, with one victim reportedly suffering a dislocated nose.
“This defendant does not take his alcohol addiction seriously,” Levine said from the bench. “This court does not believe he understands the level of seriousness when it comes to these allegations.”
Shia LaBeouf has a documented history of legal issues, including prior arrests and a 2020 sexual battery lawsuit filed by ex-girlfriend FKA Twigs, which was settled out of court in July. LaBeouf has also been open about his struggles with sobriety in past interviews and court proceedings (via AP News).
Orleans Parish Criminal Court Judge Simone Levine ordered the 39-year-old actor to submit to weekly drug tests, including one on the spot in the courthouse, and set a US$100,000 bond. LaBeouf agreed, and his lawyer said the test did not show illegal substances in his system.
The New Orleans Police Department previously said a staff member had attempted to remove LaBeouf from a business but said the actor hit one man several times with closed fists. They alleged the Transformers actor was causing a disturbance and becoming increasingly aggressive at a business on Royal Street early on Feb. 17.
Police said multiple people attempted to hold LaBeouf down but he was let up “in hopes that he would leave.” They alleged LaBeouf then resumed hitting the same man and then punched another person in the nose before he was held down until officers arrived.
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FKA Twigs files lawsuit against Shia LaBeouf, claiming abusive relationship
Levine called LaBeouf’s behaviour a concern for “the safety of this larger community, especially relative to marginalized community that has gone through so much terror,” referring to a police report that claimed the Holes actor allegedly yelled homophobic slurs while hitting multiple people near the French Quarter earlier this month.
“This defendant does not take his alcohol addiction seriously,” Levine said. “This court does not believe he understands the level of seriousness when it comes to these allegations.”
The judge said that she was concerned whether LaBeouf “could handle his alcohol.”
“Frankly, being drunk on Mardi Gras is not a crime,” LaBeouf’s lawyer, Sarah Chervinsky, told the judge.
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LaBeouf posted bond and has not yet formally entered a plea to the charges. His next court appearance is scheduled for March 19.
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Jeffrey Damnit, a local entertainer who is identified in the police report as Jeffrey Klein, previously told The Associated Press that LaBeouf repeatedly punched him and used homophobic slurs while threatening his life. Damnit said he believed LaBeouf had targeted him because he wore makeup and eyeliner.
“This guy wants me to be dead because I wear makeup,” Damnit said. “It’s a screwed-up thing.”
Levine said that when she originally released LaBeouf without bond hours after his arrest on Feb. 17, the allegations that the actor had used homophobic slurs had not yet been reflected in the official court record, The Guardian reports.
After LaBeouf was released from custody, he was seen in the French Quarter dancing in the streets on Mardi Gras.
LaBeouf was also ordered to stay away from the victims and the bars where the alleged altercation took place.
The judge also denied a request by LaBeouf to travel to Rome in March for “religious observations, including his father’s baptism.”
LaBeouf’s arrest came after he went on an extended weekend bar crawl during Mardi Gras in New Orleans, employees of various establishments told The Hollywood Reporter.
“He is terrorizing the city,” one bartender, who waited on LaBeouf, told the outlet.
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On Feb. 15, LaBeouf posted a photo of himself on X wearing Mardi Gras beads.
This isn’t LaBeouf’s first run-in with police — he was arrested in July 2017 while filming The Peanut Butter Falcon. LaBeouf was taken into police custody after resisting arrest and going on a racist, profanity-filled rant.
Footage of the incident was released online, showing him calling police officers “b-tch” and “wh-re.” He said one of the officers “especially” was going to hell, LaBeouf said, “because he’s a Black man.”
LaBeouf went on to say that he’s a “tax-paying American” and “I have rights.” LaBeouf also said, “I’m an American. You’ve got me in my hotel, arresting me in my hotel, for doing what, sir? You really got these cuffs on me heavy, bro.”
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Body camera captures actor Shia Labeouf ranting, swearing at police during arrest
He was charged with public drunkenness (which was later dropped) and disorderly conduct. He issued an apology after the footage of the incident was released, saying, “I am deeply ashamed of my behaviour and make no excuses for it.”
In October 2017, the actor pleaded guilty to a misdemeanour charge of obstruction and was placed on a year’s probation.
In March 2018, LaBeouf opened up about learning from his mistakes following his arrest in Savannah, Ga.
“What went on in Georgia was mortifying,” LaBeouf said in a cover story for Esquire’s April 2018 issue. “White privilege and desperation and disaster … It came from a place of self-centred delusion … It was me trying to absolve myself of guilt for getting arrested.
“I f–ked up.”
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“I’m a buffoon,” LaBeouf told the publication. “My public outbursts are failures. They’re not strategic. They’re a struggling motherf–ker showing his a– in front of the world.”
In 2020, British singer FKA Twigs filed a lawsuit against LaBeouf, accusing him of “relentless abuse,” including assault, sexual battery and infliction of emotional distress.
At the time of the suit, LaBeouf said he was “not in any position to tell anyone how my behaviour made them feel.”
“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. There is nothing else I can really say,” he said in a statement.
Shia LaBeouf was arrested in the early hours of Tuesday following an alleged physical altercation during Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Variety has confirmed.
The “Transformers” actor was involved in an incident shortly after midnight outside a bar in the French Quarter, during which he received medical attention from paramedics. TMZ reported that a witness said LaBeouf had been escorted out of a nearby bar for unknown reasons, and the alleged fight occurred afterward. According to court records, LaBeouf is facing two charges of simple battery.
LaBeouf has had a history of erratic behavior and prior legal issues, including a lawsuit filed against him by FKA Twigs alleging sexual battery, assault and infliction of emotional distress. The lawsuit was settled in July of last year.
The director’s portrait of Francis Ford Coppola’s creative process is never allowed to probe deeply enough. Courtesy Venice Film Festival
From Leaving Las Vegas director Mike Figgis, Megadoc is a fly-on-the-wall documentary about the making of Megalopolis, Francis Ford Coppola’s white whale production, which he finally released last year. The response to Coppola’s mad utopian epic ranged from baffled to mixed, and while some, like myself, were awestruck by its ambition, there’s no denying that the $120 million self-funded saga makes for an enrapturing curio. However, it’s hard not to wonder if Megadoc is the right film to answer any burning questions, given its own troubles—which become a minor subject too, as Figgis is left with no choice but to turn the lens on himself.
There’s no denying that Megadoc has at least some academic value: it’s the kind of documentary students might watch in a Production 101 class to get a taste of the chaos of big movie sets. This might sound like a backhanded compliment, but as the 77-year-old Figgis narrates in the opening minutes (about the 86-year-old Coppola), he’s never actually seen another director at work. Megadoc is a mood piece and a process piece, shot up close with lo-fi video equipment, but it’s never allowed to probe deeply enough. With jagged cuts mid-scene, several unfolding threads are left feeling incomplete, while the movie’s two leads—Adam Driver and Nathalie Emmanuel—barely feature, which Figgis attributes to their reluctance to be filmed on set. Much like Megalopolis, Megadoc faces challenges while searching for its voice. However, where Coppola succeeds in his pursuit by the end, Figgis does not, despite the movie’s many gestures toward riveting topics.
The documentary not only chronicles the early days of Megalopolis rehearsals—during which Coppola plays theater and improv games, establishing his credo of having fun—but it also flashes back to earlier taped readings and screen tests from two decades ago, during which stars like Uma Thurman and Ryan Gosling were once part of the production. The long road to finally making Megalopolis just about fades into view, but the doc seldom seems to have enough footage to follow a single train of thought.
MEGADOG ★★1/2 (2.5/4 stars) Directed by: Mike Figgis Starring: Francis Ford Coppola, Eleanor Coppola, Adam Driver, Aubrey Plaza, Nathalie Emmanuel, Dustin Hoffman, Giancarlo Esposito, Chloe Fineman, Shia Labeouf, Laurence Fishburne, Jon Voight, Talia Shire, Robert DeNiro Running time: 107 mins.
Figgis, on the occasions that he speaks to the camera, seems acutely aware of his role as a storyteller in search of on-set conflict, which he finds most often in the relationship between the experienced Coppola and the hot-headed former child star Shia LaBeouf, a pair whose respective playful and logistical philosophies make for an awkward fit. LaBeouf references the controversies that have made him persona non grata in Hollywood, and how his precarious employability informs his initially cautious approach. This care is eventually shed, leading to numerous intriguing and hilarious clashes between the duo, but the film either isn’t interested in expounding upon Shia’s life (and the way it informs his mindset) or isn’t able to get the right sound bites. Either way, it comes achingly close to finding its heart and soul in the oddball, pseudo father-son relationship between the director of The Godfather and the star of Nickelodeon’s Even Stevens, and what a joy that would have been. However, the numerous times they end up at loggerheads, with their diametrically opposed approaches to meaning and artistry, end up lost in the shuffle of the doc’s many other concerns.
There are tidbits about budgets, costumes, visual effects and so on, but Figgis’ record is too straightforward and too chronological (often in a literal, day-by-day sense) to capture the fraught process of filmmaking and how its challenges are overcome. Anytime the department heads are seen trying to pull off some practical magic trick, Megadoc seldom establishes what goal they’re working toward, in the form of either concept art or finished footage. Although we’re allowed to glimpse the finished product of certain shots, in the meantime, all we’re left with are scenes of people tinkering and working toward objectives that are rarely clear to even viewers who have seen Megalopolis.
Some interviews with more experienced actors like Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight provide wise insight about Coppola’s process, while relative newcomer Aubrey Plaza forms an amusing bond with the director, based on sarcastic banter. But there’s never enough cohesion behind Megadoc to make it more than just a behind-the-scenes special feature. For a filmmaker like Figgis, whose 2000 four-way split-screen movie Timecode remains a landmark of digital experimentation—it was the first feature made in one take (that too four times over), even though Russian Ark wrongly gets the credit—capturing Coppola at his most wildly experimental ought to feel like a spark of madness burning through the screen. Whether or not it actually instilled these feelings in Figgis is hard to tell, but given Megadoc’s languid unveiling, the mad science on display rarely ends up felt, and is most often observed at a casual and disappointing distance.
Scandal-plagued actor Shia LaBeouf has officially joined the Catholic Church, the Capuchin Franciscans of the Western America Province (based in California’s Bay Area) confirmed via Facebook.
LaBeouf received the sacrament of confirmation on New Year’s Eve, making things official with the Church, according to a Facebook post from the friars, who wrote in the post that they were “overjoyed to welcome him into the fold and witness his deep commitment to his faith journey.”
They hailed 37-year-old LaBeouf’s “incredible talent and passion in the entertainment industry” in their celebratory announcement.
LaBeouf began his acting career as a young teen, rising to fame for his role on the Disney Channel’s Even Stevens, later breaking into blockbuster franchises like Michael Bay’s Transformers films and an Indiana Jones sequel. In more recent years, LaBeouf has attracted attention for his variousperformance art exploits, bizarre behavior, and legal troubles, including a 2014 arrest for disorderly behavior at a Broadway performance of Cabaret (LaBeouf was ordered to go to substance-abuse treatment, and a judge agreed to dismiss his case after six months of good behavior). After a 2017 arrest in Savannah, Georgia, stemming from a public outburst, prosecutors dropped a public drunkenness charge, while LaBeouf pleaded guilty to obstruction and no contest to disorderly conduct (he paid a fine, served probation, and was ordered to seek counseling). In 2020, he was charged with misdemeanor theft and petty battery stemming from a verbal altercation that turned physical, with a judge later dismissing the case after LaBeouf reportedly completed a 12-month diversion program. In 2021, his former partner FKA Twigs accused LaBeouf of “relentless abuse” and said in an interview, “it’s a miracle I came out alive.” LaBeouf denied the allegations.
The friars’ post nodded at his troubled past, writing, “As Capuchin Franciscans, we believe in the transformative power of faith and the incredible impact it can have on one’s life. We are humbled and grateful to walk alongside Shia as he takes this important step in his spiritual journey.” The post said that his “decision to fully enter the Church is a testament to his sincere desire to grow in his relationship with God and live out the Gospel values.”
Earlier in life, LaBeouf publicly identified as Jewish, born to a Jewish mother and Christian father. While preparing for a role in Padre Pio, in which he played an Italian priest in the Roman Catholic Church who was eventually canonized, LaBeouf developed a fascination and affinity for the Church. In a 2022 interview with Bishop Robert Barron, who administered LaBeouf’s confirmation last week, the actor said that what began as research into Catholicism soon became a lifeline.
Playwright David Mamet never appeared to be a huge fan of critics, and once called a pair of high-profile reviewers the “syphilis and gonorrhea of the American theater.” Since then, the Pulitzer Prize winner has taken a hard right, penning a 2008 essay for the Village Voice entitled “Why I Am No Longer a ‘Brain-Dead Liberal’” and gaining the advocacy of folks like conservative commentator Barton Swaim. It’s perhaps unsurprising, then, to hear that Mamet has not invited critics to his latest play, nor is it a shock that one of the cast members is controversial actor Shia LaBeouf, who faces troubling allegations from several women. What is surprising is that LaBeouf appeared to flout Mamet’s anti-critic tendencies, and personally invited L.A. Times reviewer Charles McNulty to the show.
LaBeouf, a once-ubiquitous actor who made headlines last year during a public dispute with Don’t Worry Darling director Olivia Wilde, has been harder to find since former partner FKA Twigs (born Tahliah Debrett Barnett), singer Sia, and stylist Karolyn Pho came forward with allegations against the actor. Barnett filed a civil suit against LaBeouf in December 2020 in which she accused him of sexual battery, assault, and infliction of emotional distress, and also claimed that he had knowingly infected her with a sexually transmitted disease.
In response, LeBeouf told the New York Times, “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,” and that he is “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,” but that some of the claims made against him “are not true.”
Barnett’s suit against LaBeouf was recently delayed, Pitchfork reports, as scheduling issues have held up depositions and “certain discovery issues still remain to be resolved.” The trial is now scheduled for Los Angeles Superior Court on October 14, 2024.
Meanwhile, LaBeouf took on his first-ever stage role in Mamet’s latest play, Henry Johnson. Per its description, the show “follows the plight of a man after an act of compassion upends his life,” and is currently running at The Electric Lodge Theater in Los Angeles.
“The reason you likely haven’t heard much about this offering is that this is one of Mamet’s clandestine world premieres,” McNulty writes of the show, to which “critics were not invited, even after they politely asked.” McNulty has written about Mamet’s evolving reputation over the years and doesn’t seem surprised by the diss. Given the reviews of recent works like Bitter Wheat (Mamet’s play about Harvey Weinstein), as well as Mamet’s widespread excoriation for his embrace of conspiracy theories, we probably shouldn’t be, either.
Nor was LaBeouf. In an email to McNulty, he wrote, “Three weeks into a successful run of ‘Henry Johnson,’ and we have yet to receive a review, analysis, or any illuminating interpretation of our work, positive or negative. Outside of a few tweets, and word of mouth. I know Mamet prefers this.”
But LaBeouf, it appears, does not. “Personally, I find dramaturgical criticism instructive and generative,” he wrote. “I think it’s good for the sport and I would be pleased as punch if you could join us in attending the play one of these days.”
McNulty took LaBeouf up on his offer, and the overall review is…not bad? “LaBeouf is scarily good,” he writes, and it’s his role that generates most of the critic’s praise. The jury is out on if Mamet will ever recover from statements like “Trump did a great job as president.” But if LaBeouf sends a polite and charming email to everyone disconcerted by the allegations against him, will that be enough to return him to the greater public stage?
Shortly after LaBeouf’s departure, two women accused the actor of physical, mental, and emotional abuse, and he told The New York Times, “I have no excuses for my alcoholism or aggression, only rationalizations. I have been abusive to myself and everyone around me for years.… I’m ashamed of that history and am sorry to those I hurt.” But ahead of the film’s 2022 release, LaBeouf denied being fired, sharing emails with Variety in which he told Wilde, “I quit your film”; he alleged that he left Don’t Worry Darling due to inadequate rehearsal time. Later, while appearing on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, Wilde said, “We had to replace Shia. He is a fantastic actor, but it wasn’t going to work. When he gave the ultimatum—him or Florence—I chose Florence. That was him feeling he was stepping away and me feeling like we were moving on without him,” adding, “It’s a question of semantics.”
Blake Jenner
Fresh off his best-actor Oscar nomination for Aftersun,Paul Mescal is seizing the role of Broadway composer Franklin Shepard in Richard Linklater’s Merrily We Roll Along, taking the part over from Jenner, who previously worked with the filmmaker on Everybody Wants Some!! While no official reason has been cited for Jenner’s departure, his ex-wife, Melissa Benoist, revealed in 2019 that she was a survivor of domestic abuse, though she did not name the perpetrator. Jenner, whom Benoist married after they played love interests on Glee, later confirmed the allegations and apologized, but he also claimed he had been abused as well prior to their divorce in 2017.
Using the multiyear filming approach that he took with 2014’s Boyhood, Linklater will shoot Merrily over a 20-year period, with Mescal, Ben Platt, and Beanie Feldstein starring as the main trio. Last April, Platt said that Linklater had shot “the first sequence” of the film, but it’s unclear if or how any of Jenner’s footage was reconfigured.
Louis C.K.
The disgraced comedian admitted to sexual misconduct with multiple women in 2017, releasing a statement in which he admitted, “These stories are true. At the time, I said to myself that what I did was okay because I never showed a woman my dick without asking first, which is also true.” The professional fallout for C.K. was swift, as a deal between FX Productions and his production company, Pig Newton, was canceled, and wide-release plans for his film I Love You, Daddy were scrapped.
Amidst the rubble were two of the star’s voice-over roles. Reruns of Disney Channel’s Gravity Falls, on which C.K. voiced a character named “the Horrifying Sweaty One-Armed Monstrosity,” were redubbed by series creator Alex Hirsch. And he didn’t reprise his role as Jack Russell terrier Max in 2019’s Secret Life of Pets 2, a part that instead went to Patton Oswalt. “I did have some hesitations, but it was more about the story rather than the voice, so I just said, ‘All right,’” Oswalt told The Hollywood Reporter about taking on the job. Since the fallout, C.K. has won a Grammy, embarked on a nationwide comedy tour, and directed another movie.
Johnny Depp
Before his defamation trial against ex-wife Amber Heard, Depp resigned from his role as Gellert Grindelwald in Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, the third film in the Harry Potter prequel series. The exit followed his loss in a 2020 libel case against the publisher of British tabloid The Sun. He was replaced by Mads Mikkelsen, although Depp reportedly still received his full $16 million salary for the project. “I’m a big fan of Johnny,” Mikkelsen said last August. “I think he’s an amazing actor; I think he did a fantastic job. Having said that, I could not copy it. There was no way I could just copy it, because it’s so much him. It would be creative suicide. So we had to come up with something else, something that was mine, and build a bridge between him and me.”
Chris D’Elia
After the stand-up was accused of sexually harassing and grooming underage girls in 2020, which D’Elia denies, he was erased from Zack Snyder’s Netflix zombie film, Army of the Dead. When asked about the decision to reshoot D’Elia’s scenes using Tig Notaro, Snyder told Vanity Fair: “I think it was a fairly easy one.” Producer Deborah Snyder added, “It was an expensive one, that’s for sure,” with Zack estimating that production poured “a few million” into scrubbing D’Elia’s frames and staging reshoots.
Ed Westwick
In fall 2017, the Gossip Girl alum was accused of sexual assault by three separate women. The actor denied all allegations in a since-deleted tweet, writing, “I have never forced myself in any manner, on any woman. I certainly have never committed rape.” Ordeal by Innocence, the BBC adaptation of an Agatha Christie classic, in which Westwick played the black sheep son of a wealthy family, had its Christmastime release date delayed. His role was reshot with British actor Christian Cooke, who had starred alongside Westwick in 2013’s Romeo & Juliet adaptation, and the miniseries premiered in April 2018.
Frank Langella
When the Oscar-nominated actor was fired from Mike Flanagan’s Netflix adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s Fall of the House of Usher last April, the then 84-year-old blamed his ouster on “cancel culture” in a column for Deadline. In the piece, Langella said that his costar accused him of touching her leg, a move that was not scripted by the project’s intimacy coordinator. The actor, who wrote that the project was meant to be his “last hurrah,” also said that he had been accused of telling “an off-color joke,” sometimes calling his costar “baby” or “honey,” and hugging his coworker or touching her on the shoulder. Langella was subsequently replaced by actor Bruce Greenwood, who stars alongside Carla Gugino,Mary McDonnell, and Mark Hamill.
