Shia LaBeouf Arrested for Disorderly Conduct, Criminal Trespass
UPDATE: LaBeouf was released from jail Friday morning and pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Shia LaBeouf was in police custody Thursday evening following an arrest at a production of Cabaret at Studio 54 in New York City. LaBeouf was charged with criminal trespass and two counts of disorderly conduct for reportedly smoking inside the venue, refusing to stop after being repeatedly asked to do so and generally being disruptive. The actor was reportedly forced to wear a face mask after repeatedly spitting at police officers and telling them, “Fuck you. I’ll fuck you up.”
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According to a press agent for the show, LaBeouf was “disruptive during act one [of the performance] and escorted out of Studio 54 at intermission.“ LaBeouf was taken to the NYPD Midtown North Precinct for questioning. Attendees of the show reported the actor was crying when arrested, and looked generally disheveled and unkempt, wearing a tattered shirt.
“Honestly, I wasn’t thinking of drunk or drugs. I was thinking he was working on a role, because it was that extreme,“ witness Tina Marie Miller told CBS New York. “If we didn’t know who he was, we’d assume he was a bum, literally, from how he looked and how he was acting.“
Following the arrest, a Cabaret cast member, Danny Burstein, wrote on Facebook, “Shia LaBeouf has just been escorted from the building in handcuffs. Yep, that just happened.“
This is hardly LaBeouf’s first instance of odd behavior: this past February, the Nymphomaniac actor walked out of a news conference at the Berlin Film Festival, later donning a paper bag on his head for the red carpet premiere of the controversial Lars Van Trier film. Last year, the 28-year-old allegedly plagiarized comic artist Daniel Clowes in his directorial debut, HowardCantour.com, and then plagiarized other famous apologies when issuing his own.
In January of this year, LaBeouf announced via Twitter he was retiring from “all public life.“