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Telegraph
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Shia LaBeouf assaults his own acting students in new documentary
Shia LaBeouf, the American actor, stars in a documentary at the Cannes Film Festival in which he appears to physically assault his own acting students. LaBeouf, best known for his roles in Indiana Jones and Transformers, has a controversial reputation for his alleged abuse of past romantic partners. He is currently facing a lawsuit filed by singer and former girlfriend, FKA Twigs, who has accused him of 'relentless abuse'. LaBeouf has now attended Cannes for the premiere of a documentary that appears to capture him bullying and manhandling young acting students. His attendance on the Riviera comes after the event organiser pledged to stamp out the threat of abuse at the festival. The documentary is titled Slauson Rec, and follows LaBeouf's leadership of acting masterclasses held at Slauson Recreation Centre in Los Angeles between 2018 and late 2020. The film appears to show LaBeouf, now 38, berating his young students as he tries to have them stage an avant-garde play he dashed off in a matter of weeks. LaBeouf is shown grabbing one student violently enough to leave a scratch on his ribs and armpit, and in another incident he is shown pushing an actor against a wall for failing to giggle correctly. He is also shown frequently screaming at his students, and publicly sacking an aspiring actress whose mother has just died. The documentary by filmmaker Leo Lewis O'Neil featured at Cannes, where LaBeouf discussed his own personality issues. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter at a screening of the film, he said he was 'disgusted' by his own behaviour. He added that he had 'one horrible s--- in the past that I'm going to have to make amends for the rest of my life'. LaBeouf faces a scheduled trial following the lawsuit filed by Twigs in September. When Twigs first brought her lawsuit, LaBeouf's legal team said the star denied 'each and every allegation' against him. These include waking her up by choking, grabbing her hard enough to cause bruising, and at one stage threatening to crash a car he was driving unless she said she loved him. A former child actor, LaBeouf became an international star at the age of 20 following his starring role in the 2007 film Transformers. He became known for bizarre stunts, including walking the Cannes red carpet with a paper bag on his head, spending 24 hours in a lift as part of a performance art piece, and copying the words of other celebrities during interviews. He has been arrested several times, including at a New York's Studio 54 in 2014, and in 2017 after subjecting police to a drunken rant, which he called 'a new low'. The star recently sought to change course with the help of religion. In 2023, LaBeouf embarked on a 'spiritual journey', converting to Catholicism after working on a film about Padre Pio, the Italian stigmata sufferer and holy man. Friars in the US who prepared the star for the role of Pio announced the news, and claimed that the actor also wished to become a deacon, a role intended to assist parish priests. A statement released by the Capuchin Friars of the Western America Province said: 'We are thrilled to share that our dear friend Shia LaBeouf has fully entered the Church this past weekend through the sacrament of confirmation.'
CNN
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CNN
Shia LaBeouf's acting school is the subject of an intense documentary
Shia LaBeouf has often found himself at the center of controversy. A new documentary that recently premiered ay the Cannes Film Festival has the actor right back there. Leo Lewis O'Neil's documentary 'Slauson Rec,' which explores the experimental theater company LaBeouf launched in Los Angeles in 2018, sparked some 30 audience members to walk out of the screening at Cannes, according to Variety. The footage reportedly shows the volatile actor reacting with aggression and sometimes violence towards some of the participants who joined the company, organized out of the Slauson Recreation Center in Los Angeles. 'I've done a lot of coming to terms with the failure that was my life, and the plastic foundation I had,' Variety reports LaBeouf as saying in a present day interview in the first few moments of the film. 'I left a lot of people in the wake of my personality defects.' He reportedly 'instigates' a fist fight with a company member named Zeke, who runs afoul of LaBeouf after booking a role on a Netflix project and quits 45 days into rehearsals at the theater company. Another interaction with Zeke reportedly shows LaBeouf going off on the young man the actor dubbed 'James Dean.' 'I don't give a f**k what you say to me… You've got it better than I ever had it,' Variety quotes LaBeouf as saying in doc. 'What the f**k is the attitude problem? I'm giving you everything I have, so stop f**ing with me.' LaBeouf is also shown firing a women named Sarah who had remained with the troupe, despite her mother being ill in the hospital. The actor lets her go after her mother dies and two weeks before the play she had a part in was scheduled to open. O'Neil told Vanity Fair he initially showed up as one of hundreds of people who came to participate in the theater company before it was whittled down to about 80 or so members. He said LaBeouf saw that he had a camera and encouraged him to film what was happening. 'He was putting his belief in me and giving me an opportunity,' O'Neil told the publication. 'I had never done something like that before.' A representative for LaBeouf directed CNN to the statement he provided to Vanity Fair, in which he expressed his support for the release of the documentary. 'I gave Leo (Lewis O'Neil, 'Slauson Rec' director) this camera and encouraged him to share his vision and his personal experience without edit. I am aware of the doc and fully support the release of the film,' he said in the statement last month. 'While my teaching methods may be unconventional for some, I am proud of the incredible accomplishments that these kids achieved. Together we turned a drama class into an acting company. I wish only good things for Leo and everyone who was part of The Slauson Rec Company.' CNN's Alli Rosenbloom contributed to this story
