FKA Twigs is sharing her experience with Shia LaBeouf, whom she filed a lawsuit against in December, alleging “relentless abuse” at his hands during their relationship. She accused him of sexual, physical, emotional abuse, and knowingly giving her a sexually transmitted disease.
The 33-year-old opened up to Elle for their March 2021 cover story, saying she feels “lucky” to have emerged alive from their relationship.
“It's a miracle I came out alive,” said the British singer, born Tahliah Debrett Barnett, adding, “I think it's luck. I honestly wish I could say that I found some strength and I saw this light. I wish I could say, 'It is a testament to my strong character,' or 'It's the way my mother raised me.' It's none of that. It's pure luck that I'm not in that situation anymore.”
Barnett, who is now dating Matt Healy, said that he used “calculated, systematic, tricky, and mazelike” tactics to keep her in the relationship, including “love bombing,” in which he would bombard her with flowers, mea culpas and more in order to win her back following a fight.
She said that he slowly increased the abuse. “If you put a frog in a boiling pot of water, that frog is going to jump out straightaway,” she said. “Whereas if you put a frog in cool water and heat it up slowly, that frog is going to boil to death. That was my experience being with LaBeouf.”
Barnett said recovering from their relationship has “been the hardest thing I've ever tried to do.” She also discussed how she’s moving forward.
“It's very fresh, for me, obviously. I know this journey is not going to be perfect,” she said in the interview. “But I hope if I can make little steps, and people can see me taking my life back, it will inspire them. I've given LaBeouf back his dysfunction now. I went on my whole Magdalene tour holding that dysfunction — it was with me onstage, every time I did an interview, on every red carpet. I was not enjoying any of it. Because I was still holding it.”
“I have my life back. I can work as late as I want. I can see my friends. To be able to hit up Dua Lipa on Instagram, make a song with her, perform on her livestream, and have a new friend … and there’s no anxiety behind it,” she said. “No fear of, like, ‘What is this going to cause for me? What trouble am I going to be in?'
LeBeouf denies the allegations and filed court papers of his own demanding that she pay for his legal costs and “further relief as the Court may deem just and proper.” He is on an acting hiatus and is undergoing inpatient treatment.
LaBeouf has had a tumultuous history, and his ex Sia backed up Barnett’s abuse story when she went public, saying he abused her too.
