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Shia LaBeouf has been doing interviews and running around the Cannes Film Festival like he’s about to make his triumphant comeback.
But if the Transformers star was expecting a new documentary about him to show everyone a different side after his controversies… no such luck. So far audiences are reportedly seeing a volatile megalomaniac who terrifies those around him! Pretty much confirming what FKA twigs and others have been saying about him…
Slauson Rec is a film documenting the formation of the Slauson Recreation Center theater school, a project Shia began several years ago. The idea, based on his initial 2018 tweet, was to create a free part-time theater program for anyone interested in acting — not just professionals and hopefuls, but for anyone with the creative bug. It sounds like an extremely well-intentioned idea from a celebrated (if odd) actor. In the years since we’ve heard some pretty awful accusations about the way Shia treats the people in his life… not to mention stray dogs. But at the time he was beloved. And he brought people to him.
Leo Lewis O’Neil wasn’t an actor, but he was a huge fan of Shia and “desperate to be part of anything he did.” So he offered to be the project’s archivist, filming everything that happened. The result, seven years later, is a two-and-a-half hour documentary showing Shia really trying for the three years the school was open to push people. And sometimes actually pushing people. Also yelling, throwing things, storming off in anger. One Variety critic at the Cannes screening called it “an endless loop of rage and regret, which caused nearly 30 audience members to trickle out of the auditorium during the screening.”
Related: Fans Think Shia Was The ‘Very Famous’ Abuser Megan Fox Wrote About!
Based on the early reviews, it sounds like the movie shows Shia constantly flying off the handle, screaming at and bullying everyone around him, mistreating his students. His love for them is “conditional,” he makes clear. When they don’t meet his standards, he screams at them. When they do, his approval means that much more. What we’re hearing? It sounds like an abuser taking his relationship M.O. and expanding it to hurt 200 young actors instead of just one woman.
The film includes interviews with current Shia, father and husband to Mia Goth, supposedly having come out of this crucible with some kind of wisdom. He cops to having a “god complex.” He realizes he wanted to make people suffer to reach his idea of art. He says in a moment right at the film’s start:
“I’ve done a lot of coming to terms with the failure that was my life, and the plastic foundation I had. I left a lot of people in the wake of my personality defects.”
If this sounds familiar to you, but you can’t quite place it? Us too. Then we clocked it. Shia’s FIRST apology after FKA twigs’ accusations came out. Remember? Right after the lawsuit dropped, he sent an email to The New York Times saying:
“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.”
After that his tune changed, after lawyers and PR people got to him. He started denying things then. But at that moment, his honest reaction was to admit his behavior, admit he was hurting people. That was in 2020. And it sounds like in 2025 he’s apologizing all over again, this time for hurting other people.
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter now, he seems to understand what the film is — but still thinks it will give more dimension to his abusive nature and get people back on his side:
“When this thing comes out, it isn’t any worse than what’s been said about me previously. Maybe it reifies people’s ideas about me. I think, at heart, I’m a good guy. Am I f**ked up? Yes. Is my process ugly and disgusting? Yes. Have I done horrible s**t in the past that I’m going to have to make amends for the rest of my life? Yes. Does this movie change any of that? No. Does it also allow my people to get a foot into this f**king industry? Yes. So gas pedal down, green light go.”
He admits how badly he acted:
“Now for me, I know who I am and who I was during the process. So yeah, I’m naked and I’m s**tting on myself throughout most of the film. It’s a very uncomfortable thing, but then you weigh the pros and cons of it all and back to that utility chunk, God doesn’t send mail to the wrong address. I don’t think I’m unique or special. I don’t think I’m the first in my line of work or any creative craft to lose the plot a bit. Leo documented it in a loving way, but full-blown — I turned into an animal.”
He’s making it seem like he’s not trying to sugarcoat it… but he kind of is. He calls the doc “a love letter to art” and mentions Klaus Kinski and other celebrated but controversial performers, always putting himself in that bracket. He’s always a tortured artist, this is always a process, and although he doesn’t outright say it… the implication is that he’s not actually remorseful for the way he treated people because at the end of the day it was all about art. And he just g*d-damn loves art so much. See what we mean?
Like, the lesson he took away is that he’s too much of a perfectionist to be a teacher:
“I know what I’m not because my perfectionism is not for leadership. It doesn’t foster healthy standards. You want to do good sometimes, but you learn that you’re not the guy.”
Notice how it’s never a statement that says he’s been monster who should never have treated people that way. It’s always about being such an amazing artist, just too talented for this world, for these people, right?
Frankly we don’t see some beautiful growth of a troubled artist in these words. We just hear more self-mythologizing. But we’ll definitely check out that doc!
P.S. And remember, folks, art is never an excuse for abuse.
For resources on mental health, visit https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/find-help.
For more information on violence against women, go to https://www.justice.gov/ovw/resources-for-survivors
[Image via Slauson Rec/YouTube.]
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