Shia LaBeouf Says He Was Raped at #IAMSORRY Installation, Sits in Silence for Hour-Long Interview

"It was no good," the actor recalls

By Zach Johnson Nov 28, 2014 2:35 AMTags
Shia LaBeoufAndreas Rentz/Getty Images

Earlier this year, Shia LaBeouf sat in silence and invited people to do pretty much anything they wanted during his #IAMSORRY installation. The actor told Ellen DeGeneres in October that he was surprised by how empathetic visitors were with him. "They stopped looking at me as like an object they started looking at me as like a human and they were very loving," the Fury star recalled. "It was really human."

LaBeouf's installation lasted five days in California.

In a recent email interview with Dazed and Confused, however, LaBeouf revealed that not everyone treated him with respect. In fact, he claimed that one woman took advantage of him in mid-February.

"One woman who came with her boyfriend, who was out side the door when this happened, whipped my legs for 10 minutes and then striped my clothing and proceeded to rape me...then walked out with her lipstick smudged to her awaiting boyfriend who i image was quite hurt by it," LaBeouf wrote. "All this happened in front of hundreds of people...Yea it was no good. Not just for me but her man as well."

He added that his girlfriend, Mia Goth, "was in line to come see me because it was Valentines Day & i was living in the gallery sleeping in a sleeping bag for the duration of the event – we were separated for 5 days. No communication. So it really hurt her as well as i guess the news of it traveled through the line. She was only about 25 people back 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. The hardest part of the show."

That wasn't the only difficulty LaBeouf experienced during the #IAMSORRY installation. "Some folks would come in, take my bag off, pop off a selfie and bounce," the actor, 28, recalled. "That felt terrible."

In spite of the alleged sexual assault and the people who refused to acknowledge that he is a person and not just a celebrity, LaBeouf doesn't regret what transpired. He wrote, "Almost everyone who came in had preconceived notions of what they were going to experience, and as soon as Nastja Rönkkö brought them through the curtain, everything changed. I went from being a celebrity or object to a fellow human. I was genuinely remorseful. It wasn't manipulation, I was heartbroken. People I've never met before came in and loved on me and with me. Some would hold my hand and cry with me, some would tell me to 'figure it out' or to 'be a man.' I've never experienced love like that; empathy, humanity."

In addition to his e-mail conversation, LaBeouf also did an hour-long video interview. Similar to his #IAMSORRY installation, the actor remained silent for its entirety.

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