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This article discusses topics such as addiction, domestic abuse, mental health, and sexual assault.
Shia LaBeouf, once a Disney Channel darling, has long been a fixture in Hollywood. Yet, due to a series of personal and professional controversies, his star power has dimmed in recent years. What exactly led to this shift?
Before diving into LaBeouf’s recent legal challenges as of February 2026, let’s revisit his career. Born in 1986 in Los Angeles, LaBeouf began as a child actor. He transitioned successfully beyond his Disney days, starring in a variety of films such as the early “Transformers” series, the thriller “Disturbia,” “Holes,” “Constantine,” and the provocative “Nymphomaniac.” He also appeared in the critically panned “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.”
As early as 2018, LaBeouf acknowledged that his controversies were eclipsing his artistic endeavors. In an interview with Esquire, he confessed, “I’ve got to look at my failures in the face for a while. I need to take ownership of my mistakes and clean up my side of the street before I can work again.” He emphasized his goal to remain creative while learning from past missteps, admitting, “I’ve been falling forward for a long time. Most of my life. The truth is, in my desperation, I lost the plot.” So what events precipitated LaBeouf’s decline in reputation? Let’s explore.
In that same Esquire piece, LaBeouf candidly spoke about his turbulent childhood. His parents divorced when he was just three, and he recalled a traumatic experience where he witnessed his mother being sexually assaulted, with the perpetrator never facing justice. LaBeouf revealed that upon entering rehab in 2017, he was diagnosed with PTSD, which he believes has contributed to some of his publicized altercations. “I’ve always thought somebody was coming in. My whole life,” he shared, reflecting on the persistent fear stemming from that incident.
Shia LaBeouf started acting at a young age — but not necessarily for the love of the game
In that same Esquire article, Shia LaBeouf opened up about his parents’ tumultous marriage — they parted ways when he was just three — as well as a horrifying core memory where he witnessed his mother endure a sexual assault. (The man who did it was never held accountable.) “When I got to rehab [in 2017] they said I had PTSD,” LaBeouf said, claiming that some of his violent altercations that have made the news are due to this incident. “I’ve always thought somebody was coming in. My whole life,” he told the outlet.
So how and why did LaBeouf get into acting? Well, as he told Time Magazine back in 2007, growing up without means made him want to make a lot of money … especially living in Los Angeles, where he met other child actors. He was directly “inspired,” as he tells it, by a kid at his school who played a small role on “Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman” who happened to have, well, a bunch of stuff. “He had all the stuff I wanted, materially. When you’re in school, if you’ve got the new Filas on, no one’s gonna punch you that day,” LaBeouf recalled.
Along came his Disney Channel original series “Even Stevens,” where he plays the lead role of Louis Stevens, as well as “Holes,” the adaptation of Louis Sachar’s iconic young adult novel. After that, LaBeouf started to pursue more adult roles in projects like “Disturbia,” and before long, he was officially a part of Hollywood’s A-list thanks to a blockbuster franchise that put him front and center.
A series of projects catapulted Shia LaBeouf to Hollywood’s A-list after family-friendly beginnings with Disney
After “Disturbia,” Shia LaBeouf booked the biggest role of his career to date: the lead part of Sam Witwicky in Michael Bay’s massive “Transformers” movies. Alongside Megan Fox, LaBeouf starred in the first film, which released in 2007 and made a whopping $700 million at the box office. When two Transformer groups — the Autobots and evil Decepticons — end up crash-landing on Earth, they encounter one of Sam’s ancestors … and years later, glasses that belonged to that ancestor, Captain Archibald Witwicky (W. Morgan Sheppard), belong to Sam. That’s how he gets involved in this whole mess, and when he does, he drags his classmate and crush Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox) along with him, because she’s beautiful and she knows how to fix a car in a crisis.
LaBeouf reprised his role as Sam Witwicky in 2009’s “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” and in 2011’s “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” before exiting the franchise, and in that time period, he also led “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” and another legacy sequel, “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.” At this point in LaBeouf’s career, he seemed like he was on top of the world — at least as far as Hollywood was concerned — but the first steps in his downfall were, as it turns out, right around the corner. By 2013, LaBeouf gained a reputation for erratic behavior, starting with a high-profile Broadway-related “feud” (of sorts) and continuing with an entirely bizarre red carpet appearance.
After major industry success, Shia LaBeouf’s odd behavior drew attention
Shia LaBeouf’s first issues started in 2013, when he dropped out of a Broadway play, “Orphans,” that was set to co-star Alec Baldwin. People drop out of projects all the time, but this situation seemed … problematic. According to a report in the New York Times, several emails obtained by the outlet indicated that something was wrong; at one point, the play’s director Daniel Sullivan wrote to LaBeouf, “I’m too old for disagreeable situations. You’re one hell of a great actor. Alec is who he is. You are who you are. You two are incompatible. I should have known it.” In an essay in Vulture, Baldwin appears to say that LaBeouf was fired, writing that he told Sullivan to fire him and not “the kid” but that that’s not how it shook out: “They fired him. And I think he was shocked. He had that card, that card you get when you make films that make a lot of money that gives you a certain kind of entitlement. I think he was surprised that it didn’t work in the theater.”
Then, during the premiere of his Lars von Trier film “Nymphomaniac” that same year, LaBeouf did something wholly unexpected during the red carpet at the Berlin Film Festival. Though it eventually was revealed that this was part of a larger performance art piece concocted by LaBeouf, fans were surprised and alarmed to see him walk the red carpet with a paper bag over his head that had holes for his eyes and declared, in black marker, “I AM NOT FAMOUS ANYMORE.” When this actually happened, it was simply a bizarre celebrity mystery … but around this same time, accusations started to plague LaBeouf too.
Throughout his career, Shia LaBeouf has been accused of multiple instances of plagiarism
In 2013, Shia LaBeouf released an original short film titled “HowardCantour.com,” only for people to notice striking similarities between it and the work of Daniel Clowes, known for graphic novels like “Ghost World.” (“HowardCantour.com specifically ripped off Clowes’ comic “Justin M. Damiano,” to be specific.) Clowes, for his part, told Buzzfeed that he was floored to see LaBeouf’s short film, bluntly stating, “I actually can’t imagine what was going through his mind.” In response, LaBeouf posted this now-deleted statement to social media (via USA Today):
“Copying isn’t particularly creative work. Being inspired by someone else’s idea to produce something new and different IS creative work. In my excitement and naiveté as an amateur filmmaker, I got lost in the creative process and neglected to follow proper accreditation. [I’m] embarrassed that I failed to credit [Daniel Clowes] for his original graphic novella […] I was truly moved by his piece of work & I knew that it would make a poignant & relevant short. I apologize to all who assumed I wrote it. I deeply regret the manner in which these events have unfolded and want [Daniel Clowes] to know that I have a great respect for his work.”
The problem? As Buzzfeed noted, even parts of his apology appeared to be plagiarized, this time from Yahoo Answers (of all places). This was far from LaBeouf’s first brush with plagiarism; Esquire also accused him of plagiarizing their printed work in one of his emails to Alec Baldwin over the “Orphans” situation. This is all, frankly, quite bizarre, but pretty benign compared to the scandals yet to come; still, a man of LaBeouf’s creative stature stealing from everyone from Clowes to a humble Yahoo Answers writer was troubling.
Throughout the later years of his career, Shia LaBeouf has been held accountable for difficult public behavior
After his initial plagiarism scandals — and frankly, those continued for years, including another bizarre brush with Daniel Clowes specifically — Shia LaBeouf started getting into much more serious legal trouble. In 2014, LaBeouf was arrested at Studio 54 Theatre in New York City for charges that, according to the BBC, “disorderly conduct and criminal trespass” and was physically removed from the premises after refusing to leave on his own. Shortly thereafter, LaBeouf pled guilty to the disorderly conduct with other charges being dropped (via the New York Times) and he voluntarily went to rehab to treat an addiction to alcohol (according to Time Magazine).
Then, in 2017, LaBeouf marked his second arrest in Savannah, Georgia, where he was held on charges including public drunkenness, per CNN; he also allegedly verbally abused the police officers conducting the arrest, some of which was captured via body-cam footage. LaBeouf said his addiction to alcohol caused the incident, and though he pled not guilty to his charges, he was ultimately found guilty on obstruction for resisting arrest (though he was found not guilty for the public drunkenness). According to Variety, he received a sentence of probation for one year and was ordered to seek further treatment.
His third arrest to date came in 2020 for misdemeanor battery and petty theft, according to the Associated Press, after an altercation with a man in Los Angeles. This time, LaBeouf attended a diversion program in exchange for dropping the charges, which he completed. his February 2026 arrest came courtesy of a Mardi Gras celebration in New Orleans for simple battery, according to NBC News, after he started a physical altercation with a fellow partygoer on the city’s famed Royal Street.
Ex-girlfriends of Shia LaBeouf alleged that the actor was abusive
It seems, by all accounts, that Shia LaBeouf’s string of public violence was also happening behind closed doors. In 2020, singer Tahliah Debrett Barnett, who goes by the stage name FKA twigs, sued LaBeouf for a number of reasons, including what she termed “relentless abuse” (per the New York Times) and “sexual battery, assault and infliction of emotional distress.” Another former partner of LaBeouf’s, stylist Karolyn Pho, also accused LaBeouf of sexual and physical abuse in the Times’s report. Barnett, for her part — who met LaBeouf while they worked on the 2019 film “Honey Boy” — said that LaBeouf subjected her to almost constant abuse throughout their relationship.
LaBeouf denied the allegations in a statement to the Times, citing PTSD and his struggles with alcohol abuse as reasons that “harmed [people] along the way” in his recovery process. Still, he obliquely addressed the accusations much later during an episode of actor Jon Bernthal’s podcast “Real Lones” in 2022 (via Variety).
“I hurt that woman,” LaBeouf told Bernthal, presumably meaning Barrett but not naming her. “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.” He continued:
“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. I f**ked up bad. Like crash and burn type sh**. [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.”
In 2020, Shia LaBeouf was set to star in one of Hollywood’s most controversial movies
Remember the 2022 movie “Don’t Worry Darling” and the absurd drama that surrounded its press tour? Somehow, Shia LaBeouf was a part of this whole ordeal too. Olivia Wilde’s second feature film ultimately was led by Florence Pugh and Harry Styles, but LaBeouf was originally supposed to play Styles’ role (Jack, husband to Pugh’s housewife Alice). As if this movie wasn’t plagued with enough nonsense, Wilde claimed that she fired LaBeouf after issues between him and Pugh surfaced. In a cover story with Variety, Wilde gave a pretty boilerplate answer as a director:
“His process was not conducive to the ethos that I demand in my productions. He has a process that, in some ways, seems to require a combative energy, and I don’t personally believe that is conducive to the best performances. I believe that creating a safe, trusting environment is the best way to get people to do their best work.”
This backfired, and for once, LaBeouf didn’t come across as the worst guy in the room. Separately, LaBeouf provided emails to Variety that he sent to Wilde, including a video clip that seemed to prove she did not fire him. As LaBeouf wrote to Wilde in his emails, “You and I both know the reasons for my exit. I quit your film because your actors & I couldn’t find time to rehearse.” He continued, “Firing me never took place, Olivia. And while I fully understand the attractiveness of pushing that story because of the current social landscape, the social currency that brings. It is not the truth.” We’ll never really know who was telling the truth here, but there was still more trouble ahead for LaBeouf.
In early 2026, Shia LaBeouf was arrested for the fourth time — and revealed news about a major breakup
Samir Hussein/Getty Images
In the aftermath of Shia LaBeouf’s Mardi Gras arrest in February 2026, a new problem presented itself: according to Page Six, LaBeouf and his wife, actress Mia Goth, split a full year prior but revealed said split in the wake of LaBeouf’s legal troubles. Goth, known for everything from Ti West’s “X trilogy” to the 2026 Oscar nominee for best picture “Frankenstein,” first got involved with LaBeouf after they met on the set of “Nymphomaniac,” and they married in Las Vegas in 2016. After a brief separation and apparent intent to divorce in 2022, the couple got back together and welcomed their daughter Isabel that same year (according to People Magazine, where LaBeouf revealed the girl’s name).
The reveal that Goth and LaBeouf had been apart for a year when he was arrested at Mardi Gras is staggering, but also could potentially prove some insight into LaBeouf’s state of mind when he allegedly incited this altercation in New Orleans. To make matters much, much worse, a report in The Hollywood Reporter revealed some specifics about LaBeouf’s bad Mardi Gras behavior, claiming that he tried to be a “celebrity bartender” during the festivities to the point where one anonymous bartender claimed he was “terrorizing the city,” and another man alleged that LaBeouf yelled homophobic slurs. As of this writing, we don’t know whether or not LaBeouf will go to court or be found guilty of these simple battery charges, but one thing seems clear: this troubled actor’s issues are apparently still ongoing.
If you or anyone you know needs help with addiction issues, help is available. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA’s National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).
If you or someone you know is dealing with domestic abuse, you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1−800−799−7233. You can also find more information, resources, and support at their website.
If you or someone you know needs help with mental health, please contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741, call the National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264), or visit the National Institute of Mental Health website.
If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN’s National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).