FKA Twigs and Shia LaBeouf’s Legal Battle: What We Know

Four years after FKA Twigs filed a lawsuit against her ex-boyfriend Shia LaBeouf for alleged physical and sexual abuse, the case finally went to trial this fall. Twigs, legally known as Tahliah Debrett Barnett, and LaBeouf began dating after meeting on the set of LaBeouf’s semi-autobiographical film Honey boy in 2018 and split nine months later. In December 2020, Barnett filed a lawsuit accusing LaBeouf of “relentless abuse” that included sexual assault, physical assault, and emotional distress. “What I went through with Shia was the worst thing I’ve ever been through in my entire life,” she told the New York Times Times in an interview after documents were filed that included abuse allegations made by another of LaBeouf’s ex-wives.

After the lawsuit was filed, LaBeouf provided a convoluted response. “I have no excuses for my alcoholism or aggression, only rationalizations,” the actor wrote in an emailed statement to Times in 2020. “For years, I have been abusive to myself and those around me. I have a history of hurting those closest to me. I am ashamed of that history and I apologize to those I have hurt.” He changed his mind with his legal team shortly thereafter, denying “broadly and specifically, every single allegation” in Barnett’s lawsuit.

Now, as the Oct. 14 trial date approaches, LaBeouf’s team is seeking to obtain Barnett’s private medical and financial records in an attempt to refute her claims of emotional distress. Barnett “allegedly suffers significant emotional distress but thrives emotionally and physically as she works on multiple projects and earns millions,” the June filing reads. “Contrary to (Barnett’s) claims, she appears to have raised her profile in the years since her relationship with Shiite.” Barnett’s team, meanwhile, has denounced the efforts as an “invasion of privacy.”

Below is everything we know so far.

In her 2020 lawsuit, Barnett claimed that LaBeouf’s “relentless abuse” began with verbal harassment and escalated to physical violence. Shortly after the two wrapped work on Dear boy, Barnett said LaBeouf convinced her to move in with him and gained her trust and confidence. Things quickly went downhill. According to the lawsuit, LaBeouf humiliated and berated Barnett for “the smallest perceived ‘insults'” and subjected her to “a constant stream of verbal and emotional abuse,” from lashing out at her for kissing men on the cheek in music videos and being polite to male waiters to raging at her for hours over disagreements over taste in art. According to the lawsuit, LaBeouf counted the number of kisses Barnett would give him in a day and punished her if she didn’t reach a certain number. Barnett claims LaBeouf held a firearm throughout the house, including one loaded next to her bed; in a “constant state of fear,” Barnett said, she was afraid to wake up and go to the bathroom at night in case LaBeouf mistook her for an intruder. She also claimed he made her sleep naked and demanded that she go with him to watch documents about murdered women.

Barnett said LaBeouf’s abuse became physical on multiple occasions, causing her numerous injuries. A particularly egregious incident allegedly occurred during a 2019 drive from the desert back to Los Angeles. Barnett said LaBeouf took off his seat belt, drove carelessly, and threatened to crash if she did not confess her love for him. At a gas station, Barnett said she begged to be let out, but LaBeouf followed her as she was getting bags out of the trunk before throwing her into the car and choking her, eventually forcing her back inside. She also accused LaBeouf of failing to disclose that he had been diagnosed with a sexually transmitted disease years earlier and knowingly passing it on to her.

Also in the suit, stylist Karolyn Pho, who dated LaBeouf in the early 2010s, shared her own story of alleged physical abuse at the hands of the actor, who she said once drunkenly pinned her to a bed and headbutted her until she was bleeding. Pho said LaBeouf tried to stop two women to form an alliance by sending her a fake, demeaning email about Barnett, who said in the lawsuit that she intended to “donate a significant portion” of the settlement money she received to domestic violence charities.

Shortly after Barnett filed her lawsuit, LaBeouf was dropped from his talent agency, CAA, and replaced by Harry Styles in an Olivia Wilde film. Do not worry honey. Denying rumours that he had been fired, he said: Diversity dropped out due to lack of time for rehearsals, and a source said that People actor took a break as he continued hospital treatment. Meanwhile, in statements emailed to New York TimesLaBeouf said many of the accusations the two women made against him were “untrue,” noting that he owes them “the opportunity to come forward publicly and take responsibility for the things that I’ve done.” LaBeouf — who had been arrested multiple times for assault and disorderly conduct prior to his lawsuit, charges that were ultimately dropped — told the publication that he is committed to recovery from PTSD and alcoholism and will “forever regret the people I may have hurt along the way.”

His lawyers took a different approach: in a legal response to the lawsuit, obtained by Peopledenied “generally and specifically, every allegation” made by Barnett and Pho. LaBeouf’s team also denied that Barnett — who said in her lawsuit that she plans to donate a significant portion of her monetary damages to a domestic violence charity — suffered any injuries or losses at the hands of her client and further denied that she was “entitled to any relief or damages.” LaBeouf’s attorneys asked the judge to dismiss Barnett’s sexual assault claims and order her to pay LaBeouf’s legal fees and “such further relief as the Court deems just and appropriate.”

In August 2022, LaBeouf addressed Barnett’s lawsuit over Jon Bernthal The real ones podcast. “I hurt that woman,” said LaBeouf, who did not mention Barnett by name but spoke about her accusations. “I hurt a lot of other people in the process, and a lot of other people before that woman.” LaBeouf called himself a “pleasure-seeking, selfish, self-centered, dishonest, careless, fearful human being” and described Barnett as a “saint” who “saved my f**king life,” adding, “If she hadn’t intervened … and created this avenue for me to experience ego death, I either would have had a really average life or I would be completely dead.”

According to documents reviewed by Pitchfork, both sides agreed to postpone the trial due to scheduling conflicts with their “entertainment projects.” However, in June, LaBeouf’s team filed a motion for Barnett’s medical and financial records, arguing that she was “too busy… to show up for the deposition” and that her claims of mental distress could not be true because her career was so successful. Barnett “allegedly suffers significant mental distress but thrives emotionally and physically as she works on multiple projects and earns millions,” LaBeouf’s lawyers wrote in the document obtained by Us Weeklyto quote Barnett’s 2019 album, Magdalena; her January Calvin Klein ad campaign and her role in the upcoming film Raven“Contrary to what (Barnett) claims, she appears to have raised her profile in the years following her association with the Shiites.”

In June, Barnett’s lawyers filed a motion condemning LaBeouf’s “overly broad and burdensome” requests for private medical and financial information, which they said “go well beyond the injuries that are actually at issue in the dispute,” according to documents obtained by PeopleBarnett’s lawyers say LaBeouf’s team is unfairly demanding her “entire” medical history, even though she has undergone psychotherapy and provided 1,300 pages of records for trial. Barnett’s team called the demands a “significant invasion” of her privacy.

“While my client has been led to believe that LaBeouf is on the path to taking responsibility and working on a show, it is clear that he intends to continue his pattern of abuse toward his victim,” Barnett’s attorney said in a statement to multiple outlets. “Any suggestion that FKA Twigs’ emotional suffering should be ignored in the name of any professional success is absurd and undermines the idea that victims should have hope for the future… Without the trauma she experienced, I can only imagine the level of success she would have achieved now.”

The Cut has reached out to Barnett and LaBeouf’s reps. We’ll update this post if we hear back.