The 'Fury' actor says a woman whipped and stripped him while his girlfriend was outside waiting in line to meet him after days of no contact.
- Nov 28, 2014
AceShowbiz - Shia LaBeouf opened up about a traumatizing encounter he experienced during his performance art installation where guests were allowed to do anything to him while he sat silent with a paper bag covering his face at the Stephen Cohen Gallery. The actor said he was raped by a woman during the art show.
LaBeouf made the shocking revelation online in a long email correspondence with Dazed writer Aimee Cliff, which led to a bizarre interview where they wordlessly stared at each other in a hotel room wearing GoPro cameras. "One woman who came with her boyfriend, who was outside the door when this happened, whipped my legs for 10 minutes and then striped my clothing and proceeded to rape me," he said.
"[She] then walked out with her lipstick smudged to her awaiting boyfriend who I image was quite hurt by it," he continued. "It was no good. Not just for me but her man as well. ... There were hundreds of people in line when she walked out with disheveled hair and smudged lipstick."
"On top of that my girl was in line to come see me," he went on. "Because it was Valentine's 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. It f**ked our Valentine's Day."
Other patrons, he said, "would come in take my bag off, never look me in the eye, pop off a selfie, and bounce. That felt terrible." "Some would come in hold my hand and cry with me. Some would come in and tell me to 'figure it out' to 'be a man'," he added. "In the end I felt cared for. However it came - it was beautiful. It blew me away. I've never experienced love like that, empathy, humanity, understanding."
Of their silent meet-up, LaBeouf said to the reporter, "I like the idea that we meet in person with a go pro photographic record but no interview ... we just look into each other's eyes for an hour ... connect on a soul level and film that as the interview and keep the words online."
"So we will both have go pro cameras strapped to our heads for the full hour and the footage will be presented raw as a split screen and you can use it on the Dazed video site. So I'm present in the magazine only in words obtained digitally and online I'm present only through a mute physical presence," he explained. "The reality of myself lies somewhere between and beyond the two. It's thoroughly metamodern I think."
