MadameNoire Featured Video

Celebrity Sightings in Paris

Source: Melodie Jeng / Getty

FKA Twigs, the 32-year-old British-born musician whose real name is Tahliah Debrett Barnett, has launched some strong allegations against 34-year-old actor Shia LaBeouf. She is suing him for the abuse she endured during their nearly year-long relationship from 2018-2019.

She shared, in an interview with The New York Times, that she’s suing LaBeouf not for monetary gain—as she plans to donate a significant portion of the funds from the suit to domestic violence charities—but to raise awareness about what happens to women all too often. And to remind people that women of any stature, income level and success can find themselves in violent relationships.

Barnett met Shia LaBeouf in 2018 on the set of his autobiographical movie Honey Boy, which he had written. After the film wrapped the two started dating. She said the beginning of their relationship was sweet with him showering her with “over-the-top displays of affection” to earn her trust.

Such tactics are common with abusers. Not only does it help establish a type of fantasy, those early memories help to keep the victim yearning to get back to those early days.

Sadly, it didn’t take long before the façade faded.

In the lawsuit, Barnett shared that LaBeouf did not like for her to make contact with male waiters. Eventually, Barnett began casting her eyes downward when men spoke to her. In the suit, she writes that LaBeouf had rules about how many times Barnett had to kiss and touch him. He enforced these quotas through constant harassment and criticism.

Eventually, LaBeouf convinced Barnett to move in with him in Los Angeles instead of return back to her home in London. Looking back, she realized that keeping her away from her personal and professional contacts, only served to isolate her further.

From there, LaBeouf told Barnett that her creative team was using her and she began doubting them.

She says living with LaBeouf was scary. He kept a loaded firearm by the bed. And she was terrified to use the bathroom at night for fear that he might mistake her for an intruder and shoot her. He didn’t allow her to wearing clothing to bed and would argue about trivial things in order to prevent her from sleeping at night.

Their relationship affected Barnett’s work as she had to delay her album Magadelene because she struggled to fulfill her professional duties.

Michael Stirton, her manager, said, “Twigs is always the driving force behind her career—always a step ahead of everyone else. This was an extreme change in her personality and character. I could speak to her but I couldn’t reach her.”

In her lawsuit, Barnett claimed that LaBeouf knowingly gave her a sexually transmitted disease. She said their relationship was rife with “relentless abuse” including sexual battery, assault and infliction of emotional distress.

Eventually, things came to a head in 2019, when the violence in their relationship took place out in public.

On Valentine’s Day, the two were in the car together returning from the desert. The trip had been volatile throughout. Barnett claimed that she woke up in the middle of the night to LaBeouf choking her

Back in the car, LaBeouf was driving recklessly and, according to her, threatening to crash unless she said she loved him. She begged him to pull over. He pulled into a gas station and she took her bags out of the trunk.

LaBeouf followed her, assaulting her, at one point throwing her against the car and screaming in her face. Eventually, he forced her back into the car.

After the incident, with the help of a therapist, Barnett began to strategize a plan to escape.

As she was packing her belongings in the spring of 2019, LaBeouf showed up unannounced and , according to a housekeeper, terrorized her.

When she refused to leave with LaBeouf, he locked her in a room and yelled at her. She said leaving him began to feel “difficult and dangerous.”

Thankfully, after several attempts, she was able to leave.

She told The Times, “The whole time I was with him, I could have bought myself a business-flight plane ticket back to my four-story townhouse in Hackney,” in London, she said. And yet she didn’t. “He brought me so low, below myself, that the idea of leaving him and having to work myself back up just seemed impossible.”

The whole ordeal, Barnett said, “was actually very expensive and a massive undertaking of time and resources to get out.”

After the gas station incident, Barnett felt defeated. She had been abused in public and no one stepped in to intervene. Afterward, when she told a colleague about what happened, the person brushed it off.

She said, “I just thought to myself, no one is ever going to believe me. I’m unconventional. And I’m a person of color who is a female.”

As for his side of the story, LaBeouf, who has been accused of being violent in relationships before, did not deny her claims.

In an email to The Times, he wrote, “I’m not in any position to tell anyone how my behavior made them feel. 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’m ashamed of that history and am sorry to those I hurt. There is nothing else I can really say.”

In another email, LaBeouf wrote that many of the allegations weren’t true but acknowledged that he owed the women, “the opportunity to air their statements publicly and accept accountability for the things I have done.”

He also mentioned that he’s in a 12-step program and in therapy.

“I am not cured of my PTSD and alcoholism but I am committed to doing what I need to do to recover, and I will forever be sorry to the people that I may have harmed along the way,” LaBeouf wrote.

As for Barnett, she said she’s bringing her story to the public because, “I’d like to be able to raise awareness on the tactics that abusers use to control you and take away your agency… What I went through with Shia was the worst thing I’ve ever been through in the whole of my life. I don’t think people would ever think that it would happen to me. But I think that’s the thing. It can happen to anybody.”

Comment Disclaimer: Comments that contain profane or derogatory language, video links or exceed 200 words will require approval by a moderator before appearing in the comment section. XOXO-MN