FKA Twigs.
Photo: David M. Benett / Dave Benett / Getty Images for Burberry
In December, FKA Twigs filed a lawsuit against her ex-boyfriend, actor Shia LaBeouf, in which she outlined a pattern of physical and emotional abuse she said she experienced in the year they dated. In a recent interview with BBC Radio 4 podcaster Louis Theroux, the singer outlined some of the ways LaBeouf kept her trapped in the relationship and in his home.
In the beginning, she said, he cultivated an intense honeymoon period, which determined how brilliant things can be … if you act well. “And from there, he allegedly became strictly controlling: ‘If I had a quota I had to meet, it would change,’ Twigs told Theroux. ‘It was like touch or appearance or kiss’, a specific number of gestures allegedly made at LaBeouf’s discretion. ‘And I had to get the touch and the kisses right. But I never … knew what the number was exactly, ”she continues. “His previous partner apparently got this number very well, so I was inadequate.” When she fell short of his subjective standards, Twigs said, “He’ll start an argument with me, cheat me for hours, make me feel like the worst person ever.”
Twigs also recalls LaBeouf’s (alleged) jealousy: ‘Being a waiter friendly or being polite to someone can be seen as flirting or wanting some kind of relationship with someone else when I literally just order pasta, She said. ‘I was told I knew what he was like, and if I loved him, I would not look men in the eye. It was my reality for a good four months towards the end of the relationship, that I could not look men in the eye. ‘
Her daily life also intensely “regimented” in other ways, she explained. Twigs told Theroux that LaBeouf would regularly wake her up before 3am and 7am to expose her to a group of suspected crimes, such as ‘staring at the ceiling and thinking of ways to leave him’ , she said. ‘He will accuse me of masturbating … [accuse] I want to be with someone else. “For months after that, an intense panic attack would wake up in the middle of the night,” Twigs said.
Much of what Twigs discussed in this interview she also mentioned in her lawsuit. There she noticed cases of physical violence: the time LaBeouf allegedly threatened to collide with their car if she did not tell him she loved him, she then bumped into her when she got out; how she did not use the bathroom at night, for fear that he would mistaken her as an intruder and shoot her with the loaded rifle he allegedly kept at the bedside; how he allegedly drove around shooting stray dogs to get character for a role. Responding to a New York Times LaBeouf said that although ‘many of these allegations are not true’, he ‘is not at all’ able to tell anyone how [his] behavior made them feel. ”
‘I have no excuses for my alcoholism or aggression, but only rationalizations. I have insulted myself and everyone around me for years. “I have a history of hurting the people closest to me,” he said. Times. “I am ashamed of history and I feel sorry for those I have hurt. There’s nothing else I can really say. ”
And indeed, Twigs is not the only partner in LaBeouf’s past to witness this kind of behavior. Costume designer Karolyn Pho added her experiences of the actor’s physical violence and his alleged drunken threats to kill her to the case. After that, Sia called LaBeouf a ‘pathological liar’. And in 2015, LaBeouf is caught on video when he yells at his then-girlfriend, Mia Goth, for allegedly being involved in ‘the kind of shit that makes a person insulting’, and then buzzes about how: ‘If I were there stayed, I would have killed her ”.
“I never thought such a thing would happen to me,” Twigs told Theroux, explaining her reasons for suing LaBeouf. “When I’m older, when I have a daughter, I want to be able to say, ‘This thing happened to me. And I handled it. ‘It’s a great thing to heal in public and have to do it in front of everyone, but I can do it. I’m a big girl, and I can do it. ‘