14 DAY TRIAL // You think you’ve got Shia LaBeouf all figured out, but you probably have no idea about what is going on in his personal and professional life. In February this year, after a long while of very bad press because of some uninspired choices he made (particularly the one about plagiarizing the work of a known graphic novelist), Shia took part in an art show called #IAMSORRY.
It was unlike anything any other actor had ever done, because it basically meant he lived at the gallery, where people could sit across the table from him and do and say whatever they wanted to him because he would do and say nothing: Shia would just cry or sit there with a paper bag on his head, reading I Am Not Famous Anymore.
This was his way of taking back control over his creative persona and over his public self, he explains in a new interview with Dazed Digital. Unfortunately, the art show also became the perfect occasion for a woman to rape him.
Rapist’s boyfriend and Shia’s girlfriend were just outside the door
The art installation consisted of a small room, fitted with one table and two chairs. Shia sat on one chair, while the visitor (only one was admitted at a time) could sit across from him. Various items related to Shia’s acting career until then were on the table, and the visitor could take just one if they wanted.
They could also lift Shia’s bag, insult him, talk to him, take selfies, do whatever they wanted. He would not respond in any way but to cry.
Speaking with Dazed, Shia admits that two of the things that happened to him during the exhibit hurt him the most ever: one was when one woman raped him, the other was when people would come in, snap selfies with him, and then leave.
It’s not often that you see a famous man admit to rape, but Shia is not holding anything back: he recalls the experience as a very painful and hurtful one. Both the woman’s boyfriend and his girlfriend were just outside the door, and Shia knew right after the fact that everyone in line would know what had happened inside, which turned out to be the case.
“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… There were hundreds of people in line when she walked out with dishevelled hair and smudged lipstick. It was no good, not just for me but her man as well,” Shia says.
When his girlfriend came in, after waiting in line for hours, she asked for an explanation, but Shia couldn’t provide it to her because he wasn’t about to end his performance just because he’d seen a familiar face.
“We both sat with this unexplained trauma silently. It was painful,” he says.
What’s up with Shia?
Since before this out of the ordinary installation, there’s been a lot of speculation online about whether he wasn’t just putting on a show to justify his initial petty gesture of plagiarizing another author’s work and then try to talk his way out of apologizing for it.
Other theories have even said that he was on drugs or having a meltdown or that his fame had gotten to his head and he was ruining his career by acting “crazy” and turning his back on all the people who had helped him get to where he was.
Shia is candid on that: he really was having an existential crisis, he wasn’t acting, and he wasn’t trying to fool anyone. This #IAMSORRY exhibit was his way of making audiences (including fans and critics and haters) see that he was human, he wasn’t a “celebrity”: he was a man.
It was also his way of taking control over his public self because, for once, he stopped acting like industry bosses wanted him to act. His rebellion was an act of creation and the freedom he’s won through it is that, today, he knows no studio boss would “look to [him] to sell a film anymore,” which means he’s free to do just the work and not the promo tours. In an industry in which so much weight is placed on these media rounds, Shia’s victory is no trifle.
If you’re wondering what prompted this, we should also add that Shia is into metamodernism right now. He’s reclaiming his private (vs. public) space ironically by inviting us into it.
Embedded below is a video of a silent “interview” he conducted in London with the Dazed reporter. The actual interview is an exchange of emails available at TheCampaignBook.
