FKA twigs opens up to Gayle King about Shia LaBeouf abuse

Warning: the following includes descriptions of emotional and physical abuse, violence and animal cruelty.

Back in December, British singer FKA twigs (given name Tahliah Debrett Barnett) filed a lawsuit against former boyfriend and Honey Boy co-star, Shia LaBeouf accusing him of “relentless abuse,” sexual battery, assault, and infliction of emotional distress.

Now, she’s talking about her ordeal to two major outlets: CBS This Morning with Gayle King, and for the cover story of the new issue of ELLE Magazine.

“He would often start an argument with me in the middle of the night, start accusing me of doing all sorts of things, planning to leave him in my head. He would wake me up to tell me I was disgusting and vile,” she told Gayle King in a clip of their interview (the full interview will air Thursday morning).

When Gayle asked if any of Shia’s accusations against her were true, twigs replied, “Nothing was ever true. This is the thing, but I would really doubt myself, especially when I would wake up and he would be like, ‘You were lying there with your eyes open planning to leave me,’ and I would be like, ‘I literally was asleep.’”

“But then he would, like, only want me to sleep naked because he said if I didn’t then I was keeping myself from him. So, you know, it’s a tactic that a lot of abusers use, this constant availability and everything is centred around them and I think that is why I wanted to come out and talk about this because the signs really are there from the beginning,” she explained.

In the cover story for ELLE, FKA twigs said the Transformers and Nymphomaniac star used “calculated, systematic, tricky, and mazelike” tactics to control her like love-bombing, gaslighting, social isolation, and sleep deprivation. 

“If you put a frog in a boiling pot of water, that frog is going to jump out straightaway,” she says in the interview. “Whereas if you put a frog in cool water and heat it up slowly, that frog is going to boil to death. That was my experience being with [LaBeouf].”

FKA twigs then shares a disturbing anecdote: that Shia not only kept a gun in the home they shared, but he also shot stray dogs to “get into character” for his role in The Tax Collector, something she questioned which made him furious.

“And he was like, ‘Because I take my art seriously. You’re not supporting me in my art. This is what I do. It’s different from singing. I don’t just get up on a stage and do a few moves. I’m in the character,'” she says of that conversation. “He made me feel bad, like I didn’t understand what it was like to be an actor or to do this … Method [acting].”

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She says she tried to reach out to friends and family but nothing ever came of those efforts. “[My friend] was expecting me to be at his house when he got back and I just wasn’t, and then I never spoke to him again,” she recalled. “I used to get this feeling of intense fear and shame, and I would evaporate from people’s lives.”

FKA twigs also claims that Shia allegedly knowingly gave her a sexually transmitted disease, a claim that was included in her court documents. That was the final straw for her and she was able to find the courage to leave him after that.

“I think it’s luck,” she says of her escape. “I honestly wish I could say that I found some strength and I saw this light. I wish I could say, ‘[It is] a testament to my strong character,’ or ‘It’s the way my mother raised me.’ It’s none of that. It’s pure luck that I’m not in that situation anymore.”

She is now dating The 1975 frontman Matty Healy.

Her allegations of abuse against Shia were first reported in The New York Times where she said, "What I went through with Shia was the worst thing I've ever been through in the whole of my life." 

Interestingly enough, Shia himself sent several emails to the newspaper, addressing the allegations with a cryptic admission that he is in no 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," he wrote to The Times. "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 court earlier this month, LaBeouf seemingly walked all that back and denied "each and every allegation" in FKA twigs' filing.

Since these allegations have seen the light of day, Shia has reportedly taken a temporary break from acting and split with his talent agency. We learned that he was fired from the set of Olivia Wilde’s Don’t Worry Darling. Former collaborator Sia, who cast Shia in her infamous “Elastic Heart” music video opposite dancer Maddie Ziegler, backed up FKA Twigs, adding that he once “conned” her into an affair. And his most recent girlfriend Margaret Qualley broke up with him amid FKA Twigs’ lawsuit. 

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