Actor Shia LaBeouf claims “life was on fire” before converted to Catholicism

Where has he been? Apparently, Shia LaBeouf has revealed details about his spiritual journey into religion and is now opening up about it. The Transformers star participated in a 90-minute interview with Bishop Robert Barron and his Words on Fire series, which is streamed on YouTube. LaBeouf remembers turning to religion when his “life was on fire,” noting that he had always considered himself an agnostic who liked to argue but that he was “never an atheist.”

“I was walking out of hell. It wasn’t like I willingly came in here on a white horse, singing showtunes,” he told Barron. “I didn’t want to be an actor anymore and my life was a mess.” The celebrity claimed that he had hurt many people in the past and that he was so ashamed of himself that he considered suicide.” I had a gun on the table. I was outta here,” he said. “I didn’t want to be alive anymore when all this happened. Shame like I had never experienced before—the kind of shame that you forget how to breathe. You don’t know where to go.”

At that time, LaBeouf accepted the lead role in a film about the Italian Franciscan Capuchin friar, Padre Pio. The actor remained at a monastery and began researching Catholicism in order to prepare for the role. LaBeouf claimed that at this time, he had “no friends in my life” and that when he started reading the gospel, he had a “deep desire to hold on.”

“And it stops being a prep for a movie and starts being something beyond all that,” he went on. “I know now my God was using my ego to draw me to Him.”

LaBeouf stated how recent allegations of abuse against him resulted in his mother and him growing apart. He said his mother was “embarrassed beyond all imagination” when the charges first came to light. “The news that had come out was like, ‘I’ve been abusive to women, I’m shooting dogs, I’ve been willingly giving women STDs,’” he said and called the accusation “depraved,” according to EOnline.

The actor, on the other hand, was able to find common ground with his mother, and he claims that prayer helped him get through the issue. “It was seeing other people who have sinned beyond anything I could ever conceptualize also being found in Christ that made me feel like, ‘Oh, that gives me hope,’” he said. “I started hearing experiences of other depraved people who had found their way in this, and it made me feel like I had permission.”

LaBeouf’s ex-girlfriend, musician FKA twigs, filed a lawsuit against him in 2020, claiming him of “relentless abuse” and intentionally infecting her with an STD. In a subsequent court file from 2021, LaBeouf refuted the allegations, claiming that the singer “has not suffered any injury or damage as a result of [his] actions.”

LaBeouf has recently become a dad of a baby girl named Mia Goth.

Photo: John Bauld from Toronto, Canada, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons