Shia LaBeouf used homophobic slurs while assaulting New Orleans bar patrons, police say

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Actor Shia LaBeouf faces battery charges and is accused of repeatedly using homophobic slurs while hitting multiple people at a New Orleans bar during Mardi Gras, according to a police report.

The New Orleans police report obtained by The Associated Press via a public records request states that LaBeouf, 39, “became irate and aggressive throughout the night” and struck multiple people with a closed fist at the Royal Street Inn & R Bar, near the historic French Quarter.

Jeffrey Damnit, a well-known local entertainer who police identified as Jeffrey Klein in the incident report, said he was one of the people attacked by LaBeouf.

“He hit me, he connected a few times with punches, he pushed me a few times,” Damnit said.

LaBeouf “just got nuts” trying to start fights and telling the entertainer and others that he would beat them up, Damnit said. He added that LaBeouf had pushed him from behind at the bar earlier in the night, shouting homophobic slurs and threatening his life.

Damnit was wearing eye makeup and lipstick and said he believes his appearance motivated LaBeouf’s attack.

“That’s just somehow something that set him off, angered him and gave him a direction for his anger,” Damnit said. “This guy wants me to be dead because I wear makeup. It’s a screwed up thing.”

A video shows a shirtless LaBeouf shoving one person to the ground and hitting another person in the face, “causing his nose to possibly dislocate,” according to the police report.

Damnit and others subdued LaBeouf and tried to get him to leave the area, but he would not leave and became more aggressive, according to Damnit and the police report.

Police arrived at the bar around 12:45 a.m. on the morning of the city’s famous Fat Tuesday revelry.

Another video recorded by Damnit and shared with the AP shows LaBeouf looking at the camera and appearing to mouth a homophobic slur while police detained him. He continued to repeat the slur throughout the arrest, the police report stated.

“These f–––––s put me in jail,” LaBeouf said, and then told police he’s Catholic, according to the report.

“I didn’t shove nobody, I never touched nobody,” LaBeouf tells New Orleans police officers in the video recorded by Damnit.

Representatives from LaBeouf did not immediately respond to request for comment. In the early morning hours of Feb. 18, LaBeouf wrote “Free me” on his X account.

A New Orleans magistrate judge ordered LaBeouf to be released from custody on Tuesday without a bond requirement, according to Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Gary Scheets. LaBeouf faces two counts of simple battery.

Videos later show LaBeouf dancing throughout the French Quarter and appears to show him waving his jail release papers.

Damnit, a member of the Screen Actors Guild–American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, says he is worried that he will face ramifications in his professional career for pressing charges against LaBeouf.

This isn’t the first time LaBeouf has faced legal troubles. He was sent to court-ordered rehabilitation after being arrested in New York in 2017 for public drunkenness and disorderly conduct, which was captured on livestream video.

While on location in Georgia filming “The Peanut Butter Falcon,” later that year, he was arrested for public drunkenness and accused of disorderly conduct and obstruction and sentenced to probation.

In 2020, he was charged with misdemeanor battery and petty theft in Los Angeles.

That year, the English singer and actor FKA Twigs, whose legal name is Tahliah Barnett, also filed a lawsuit alleging LaBeouf was physically and emotionally abusive to her during their relationship, which they settled in July.

Barnett said LaBeouf put her in a constant state of fear and humiliation, once slammed her into a car, tried to strangle her and knowingly gave her a sexually transmitted disease.

LaBeouf apologized in a statement after the lawsuit was filed. He also denied the accusations in the lawsuit in a 2021 filing, saying any injuries done or damages incurred by Barnett were not his doing.

The 39-year-old first gained acclaim as a child for his role on the Disney Channel series “Even Stevens,” and continued working steadily into adulthood. He is perhaps best known for his roles in 2007′s “Transformers” and in 2008′s “Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull.”

LaBeouf shares a daughter, born in 2022, with actor Mia Goth.

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AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr and AP Writer Juan A. Lozano contributed to this report.

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Brook is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.