As he makes his apology tour rounds, Shia LaBeouf reveals he lied about being abused as a kid to promote his autobiographical movie, Honey Boy. Written by the former Transformers actor, the 2019 drama was supposedly based on LaBeouf's years a child actor on such projects as the Disney Channel sitcom Even Stevens and Disney movie Holes, which would lead into his time as a blockbuster actor in the Michael Bay-helmed Hasbro franchise and leading Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, among other things. Honey Boy also memorably explored LaBeouf's troubled relationship with his real-life father, with the film depicting him as a fame-hungry man struggling to remain sober who is abusive towards his soon-to-be-star son.
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LaBeouf starred in Honey Boy as a fictionalized version of his father while A Quiet Place's Noah Jupe and Lady Bird's Lucas Hedges portraying the child and young adult versions of LaBeouf in the film, with the cast also including FKA Twigs, Maika Monroe, Natasha Lyonne and Martin Starr. Helmed by music video director and documentarian Alma Har'el in her narrative feature debut, the film scored largely positive reviews upon its Sundance Film Festival premiere and later Prime Video release, namely for Har'el's direction, the performances of its cast and the therapeutic nature of LaBeouf's script. Though it was seen by many as helping to clarify LaBeouf's troubled mental state as an adult, it appears not everything in Honey Boy was true to life.
While appearing on Jon Bernthal's Real Ones podcast, Shia LaBeouf opened up about his recent mental health struggles and how they've reflected in his work. When asked about his autobiographical movie, Honey Boy, the actor/writer revealed he lied about being abused by his dad in order to write the film and help promote it, and expressed remorse for having done so. See what LaBeouf shared below:
I wrote this narrative, which was just f—–g nonsense. My dad was so loving to me my whole life. Fractured, sure. Crooked, sure. Wonky, for sure. But never was not loving, never was not there. He was always there… and I’d done a world press tour about how f—-d he was as a man. Here’s a man who I’ve done vilified on a grand scale. I turned the knob up on certain s–t that wasn’t real. My dad never hit me, never. He spanked me once, one time. And the story that gets painted in ‘Honey Boy’ is this dude is abusing his kid all the time. I wronged him. I remember getting on the phone with him, and him being like, ‘I never read this stuff in the script you sent.’ Because I didn’t put that s–t in there. My dad was going to live with this certain narrative about him on a public scale for a very long time, probably the rest of his life.
LaBeouf's admittance to having lied about being abused to promote Honey Boy is sure to be a troublesome one for those who have been following recent headlines about the actor. Olivia Wilde recently shared that she had fired LaBeouf from Don't Worry Darling, only for the actor to fire back saying he quit the film due to a lack of preparation time and sharing emails and a video from Wilde in which she appears to be begging him to stay with the project. LaBeouf also used his time on Bernthal's podcast to address the abuse allegations leveled against him by Honey Boy co-star/ex-girlfriend FKA Twigs, admitting he "f—-d up bad" and expressing his appreciation for her stepping up for herself in order to help him realize the error of his actions.
At the time of its release, Honey Boy was widely hailed as LaBeouf's comeback to the film/TV industry, alongside the similarly acclaimed dramedy The Peanut Butter Falcon, with only David Ayer's The Tax Collector serving as a setback as it was widely panned by critics. With LaBeouf's reveal that he lied to help promote his autobiographical movie, it seems likely the debate about his recent efforts to fix his mistakes will only become more troublesome. While audiences await to see what may come next for LaBeouf, they can revisit Honey Boy available to stream on Prime Video now.