Shia LeBeouf: I Was Raped at Art Gallery

Says it happened during his silent 5-day gallery event in February
By Kate Seamons,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 28, 2014 6:41 AM CST
Shia LeBeouf Alleges He Was Raped
Actor Shia LaBeouf poses for photographers during the photocall of "Fury", in Paris, Saturday, Oct. 18, 2014.   (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

Shia LaBeouf is once again grabbing headlines for the most unexpected of reasons. In February, the actor spent five days in a Los Angeles gallery with a paper bag over his head. Members of the public were able to line up and visit the silent actor one by one. Now, in one of a series of emails with Dazed reporter Aimee Cliff, LaBeouf claims he was raped by a woman during the #IAMSORRY event. As Cliff writes, LaBeouf was the one who reached out to her, emailing, "Hello—I'm Shia. If you have any interest, we could start a dialogue. If not, no harm no foul. I like your point of view." The two became email penpals, and Cliff is now out with highlights from their correspondence. This is the passage garnering attention, a response to her question if any experiences from the gallery event were "particularly moving or unsettling":

  • "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 disheveled hair and smudged lipstick. It was no good, not just for me but her man as well. 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. 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."
He also expounds upon the meaning of life, that tooth he yanked out for Fury, and his "metamodernist journey"; more here. (More Shia LaBeouf stories.)

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