This past February at an art gallery space in Los Angeles, Shia LaBeouf fused the meta-celebrity of James Franco and Marina Abramovic’s audacious performance art to create #IAMSORRY—a piece wherein the former Even Stevens star sat alone in a room dressed in a tuxedo with a paper bag over his head. LaBeouf remained silent, and the “actor”—or person visiting him in the room—could do whatever they pleased with him. Our reporter, Andrew Romano, removed the bag from the actor’s head, revealing a weeping LaBeouf.
One visitor apparently took things way, way further.
In an interview with Dazed Digital, LaBeouf claims that a woman entered the room and proceeded to have sex with him against his will.
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“One woman who came with her boyfriend, who was outside the door when this happened, whipped my legs for ten minutes and then stripped my clothing and proceeded to rape me,” said LaBeouf. “There were hundreds of people in line when she walked out with disheveled hair and smudged lipstick. It was no good, not just for me but her man as well.”
To make matters worse, the Transformers actor alleges that his girlfriend, Mia Goth, was right outside the door in line with the rest of the patrons when this all went down. Awkward.
“On top of that my girl was in line to see me, because it was Valentine’s Day and I was living in the gallery for the duration of the event—we were separated for five days, no communication,” said LaBeouf. “So it really hurt her as well, as I guess the news of it travelled through the line. When she came in she asked for an explanation, and I couldn’t speak, so we both sat with this unexplained trauma silently. It was painful.”
The interview with Dazed Digital was conducted via email, and then the star and interviewer sat across from one another with GoPro’s on their heads in complete silence for an hour.
In the chat, the reporter asks why LaBeouf donned a paper bag over his head bearing the slogan “I AM NOT FAMOUS ANYMORE” while walking the red carpet at the Berlin Film Festival for the Lars von Trier film Nymphomaniac. LaBeouf claims that he did wish to withdraw from public life.
“Yeah, the ‘80s and ‘90s fucked us; our culture became a product to be sold, and anyone in a tabloid is a product—an object,” he said. “American culture is just about blowjobs and golf. I wanted to take back ownership. Fuck the money, that was never the impetus. I wanted purpose.”
