KFAL The Big 900 Classic Country
Michael Tran/Getty Images(Hollywood) — Shia LeBeouf has finally decided to talk about his arrest in Savannah, Georgia, last summer, in which he was caught on video making racist statements about a black police officer while being booked for public drunkenness, disorderly conduct and obstruction.
In an interview for Esquire magazine’s April edition, the 31-year-old Transformers star admits, “I f***** up.”
“What went on in Georgia was mortifying,” he says. “White privilege and desperation and disaster…It came from a place of self-centered delusion…It was me trying to absolve myself of guilt for getting arrested.”
LaBeouf, who was filming the upcoming movie The Peanut Butter Falcon at the time, credits his co-star Zachary Gottsagen, a 32-year-old actor with Down syndrome, for setting him straight.
“Everybody was pussyfooting around it,” he recalls, but Gottsagen told him point blank, “You’re already famous. This is my chance. And you’re ruining it.”
“To hear him say that he was disappointed in me probably changed the course of my life,” he continues. “Zack can’t not shoot straight, and bless him for it, ’cause in that moment, I needed a straight shooter who I couldn’t argue with.”
LeBeouf was sentenced to 10 weeks of court-ordered rehab, where he says he learned his defensiveness and violence was the result of post-traumatic stress disorder, brought on by overhearing his mother Shayna being raped, and feeling helpless to stop it.
The attack against his mother is also the reason the actor sleeps with a gun. “I’ve always thought somebody was coming in. My whole life,” he explains
LeBeouf will next be seen in Borg vs. McEnroe, opening nationwide April 13.
Copyright © 2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
