FKA twigs sues ex Shia LaBeouf for “sexual battery, assault,” and abuse - Pop It Records

FKA twigs, aka Tahliah Debrett Barnett, has accused Shia LaBeouf, her former boyfriend, of "sexual battery, assault and infliction of emotional distress" in a new lawsuit, New York Times reports. The suit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, also says that LaBeouf "knowingly" gave Barnett an STD, and describes incidents including this one that Barnett said took place not long after Valentines Day 2019. From New York Times:

Just after Valentine’s Day in 2019, the musician FKA twigs was in a car speeding toward Los Angeles. At the wheel was her boyfriend, the actor Shia LaBeouf. He was driving recklessly, she said in a lawsuit filed on Friday, removing his seatbelt and threatening to crash unless she professed her love for him.
They were returning from the desert, where Mr. LaBeouf, the star of “Transformers,” had raged at her throughout the trip, FKA twigs said in the lawsuit, once waking her up in the middle of the night, choking her. After she begged to be let out of the car, she said he pulled over at a gas station and she took her bags from the trunk. But Mr. LaBeouf followed, and assaulted her, throwing her against the car while screaming in her face, according to the suit. He then forced her back in the car.

The Times further describes the contents of the suit:

In the lawsuit, Ms. Barnett and Ms. Pho said that Mr. LaBeouf did not like it if they spoke to or looked at male waiters; in an interview, Ms. Barnett said she learned to keep her eyes down when men spoke to her. She also stated in the suit that Mr. LaBeouf had rules about how many times a day she had to kiss and touch him, which he enforced with constant haranguing and criticism.

Barnett enlisted a therapist's help in trying to leave LaBeouf, the suit reads, but doing so felt "both difficult and dangerous." The Times reports that a sworn statement from a witness describes a scene in spring of 2019 when Barnett was packing to leave, and LaBeouf appeared unannounced. According to the statement, LaBeouf "violently grabbed" Barnett when she wouldn't come with him, then "picked her up and locked her in another room, where he yelled at her."

"What I went through with Shia was the worst thing I’ve ever been through in the whole of my life," Barnett told the Times. "I don’t think people would ever think that it would happen to me. But I think that’s the thing. It can happen to anybody." She says she plans to donate a large potion of any monetary damages she receives to charities that help fight domestic violence.

In an email to the Times on Thursday (12/10), LaBeouf responded Barnett's allegations, and those of another former girlfriend who also accused him of abuse, writing, "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.”

He also responded to a "detailed account of the claims that the women made against him" from the Times. "Many of these allegations are not true," he wrote, but he said that he owed the women "the opportunity to air their statements publicly and accept accountability for those things I have done."

He did not respond to the Times' request for comment about the lawsuit itself.