FKA Twigs says Shia LaBeouf ‘basically strangling’ her was ‘massive wake-up call’

'That was a really low moment for me.'

Jan 26, 2021

FKA Twigs has opened up about her experience with domestic abuse at the hands of her ex, actor Shia LaBeouf.

The 33-year-old British singer, born Tahliah Debrett Barnett, got candid on the Grounded with Louis Theroux podcast about being sexually and physically assaulted by LaBeouf. The conversation comes a month after she filed a lawsuit against the Hollywood star over what she alleges was “relentless abuse.” The songstress even claims he gave her a sexually transmitted disease.

FKA Twigs said the wake up call came when the Transformers actor allegedly threw her against his car at a gas station and strangled her.

“Nobody did anything,” she said of the bystanders who witnessed the attack, per PEOPLE. “That was a really low moment for me because I felt like I would never be believed. Nobody stepped in. For me, that was a real moment of like, ‘Okay, no one is going to believe me,’ because I’m the type of person if I saw something happening, I will go and help somebody, that’s just who I am,” the artist explained.

“But to have people see me being treated in that way and not do anything — I felt really disheartened,” Twigs added. “I remember going back to where I was staying and calling an abused women’s helpline … and her reaction to me was so serious, and she was like, ‘Okay, from what you’ve said it feels to me like you’re in an unsafe place. Does your abuser know where you are? Can you get to a safe place? Who have you told about this? Is there somewhere else that you can stay?’ “

She continued, “It felt really like, ‘Whoa, somebody that I don’t even know, that doesn’t even know that I’m a singer or anything like that’ — somebody is taking this so seriously and wants to get me somewhere safe. That was a really massive wake-up call.”

“That’s the time when I realized,” Twigs said. “I need a lot of help to get out of this. And that’s when I started messaging, I messaged my best friend and I said, ‘I’m in a really abusive relationship, and it’s really bad.’ I got a therapist who I started seeing twice a week.”

FKA Twigs admits that it was only after she began the healing process via therapy was she finally “able to leave, and leave for good.”

theGRIO previously reported, FKA Twigs filed suit against LaBeouf last month in Los Angeles Superior Court. She said the incident at the gas station was one of many acts of violence during their year-long relationship.

She decided to come forward now to serve as a visible example of domestic abuse. A portion of any settlement from the lawsuit will be donated to domestic-violence charities.

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