LOS ANGELES — Singer FKA Twigs filed a lawsuit Friday alleging that Shia LaBeouf was physically and emotionally abusive during their relationship from 2018 to 2019, saying her experience was part of a pattern for the 34-year-old actor to terrorize women.
“Shia LaBeouf hurts women,” read the opening lines of the lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court. “He uses them. He abuses them both physically and mentally. He is dangerous.”
FKA Twigs – a 32-year-old British singer and actress whose legal name is Tahlia Barnett – alleges in the lawsuit that LaBeouf left her in a constant state of fear and humiliation, once slammed her into a car, tried to strangle her and intentionally gave her a sexually transmitted disease.
An email sent to a representative seeking comment from LaBeouf was not immediately returned, but in an email to The New York Times the actor said: “I have no excuses for my alcoholism or aggression, only rationalizations. I have been abusive to myself and everyone around me for years. I have a history of hurting the people closest to me. I am ashamed of that history and I am sorry to those I have hurt.”
The two met and became friends after Barnett was cast in “Honey Boy”, an autobiographical film about LaBeouf’s upbringing as a child actor, in which his father was portrayed as abusive but loving. Barnett had a supporting role alongside LaBeouf.
After initially describing the trial as “charm offensive”, LaBeouf convinced Barnett to stay with him, calling the trial a “living nightmare”.
The lawsuit claimed that LaBeouf isolated FKA twigs from family and friends, demanded complete loyalty and subjected her to constant verbal abuse, leading to multiple physical attacks.
The lawsuit alleges that he was intensely jealous of everyone she treated, from waiters to her former fiancé, actor Robert Pattinson.
The lawsuit says that on Valentine’s Day in 2019, FKA twigs woke up and LaBeouf strangled her and she became paralyzed with fear. The lawsuit claimed that he later drove recklessly and threatened to crash her car if she did not profess eternal love for him and that she feared for her life.
When she tried to get out of the car at the gas station and walk away from him, he threw her over the car, tried to strangle her and forced her back inside, the lawsuit says.
When she attempted to end the relationship and leave him the following month, he violently grabbed her and lifted her off the ground as she attempted to leave, according to a homeowner who witnessed the incident and was quoted in the lawsuit.
The lawsuit also alleged that LaBeouf knowingly gave her an unspecified sexually transmitted disease, which she made great efforts to hide from him throughout most of their relationship, including the use of makeup.
LaBeouf kept guns in the house where they were living and he would sometimes sleep with them, causing Barnett to live in a constant state of fear,” the lawsuit states.
The lawsuit says he made several attempts to leave her, which she resisted, but she later ended the relationship herself.
Stylist Caroline Foy, who dated LaBeouf in 2010 and 2011, said in the lawsuit that she received similar behavior from LaBeouf — including constant threats and insults that sometimes escalated to physical violence.
The lawsuit says Foy collaborated with Barnett in an effort to protect the women from LaBeouf, though Foy is not listed as a plaintiff.
LaBeouf told The New York Times that many of the allegations in the lawsuit and by other women who spoke about him for the newspaper’s report are “not true” but said he wanted to give the women “an opportunity to air their statements publicly and accept accountability for the things that I have done.” He did not tell the newspaper which charges he contested.
LaBeouf said he is recovering from alcoholism and PTSD and is receiving treatment, adding, “He will always be sorry to the people that I have harmed along the way.”
LaBeouf is known for his fierceness as an actor and his sometimes self-effacing public performances.
He first rose to fame on the Disney Channel show “Even Stevens” as a teen and is best known for his roles in 2007’s “Transformers” and 2008’s “Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull.”
He has had several run-ins with the law during his career, including a 2017 arrest in New York City on suspicion of assault during a livestream.
The lawsuit seeks to determine monetary damages at trial. Barnett said in the lawsuit that she would donate a significant portion of the money she received to a charity for abused women.
“This action is taken not for personal gain, but to set the record straight and help ensure that no other woman goes through the abuse that Shia LaBeouf has endured with his previous romantic partners,” the lawsuit said.
Follow entertainment writer Andrew Dalton on Twitter: https://twitter.com/andyjamesdalton
This story was first published on December 11, 2020. This was updated on February 27, 2026, to correct that LaBeouf’s 2017 New York arrest was on suspicion of assault, not public intoxication and disorderly conduct.
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