From spitting on a police officer to receiving “treatment for alcohol addiction,” it’s safe to say that Shia LaBeouf has had one bumpy year.
However, the Transformers actor looked calm and collected on today’s Ellen Show where he explained the reasons behind his concerning behavior. And it turns out that underneath the paper bag is a hurting soul.
Addressing all the flack he’s received lately, the 28-year-old discussed his broken childhood and went so far as to compare himself to the online haters:
I got into this industry because I had this void. I’m a kid of abandonment, so I thought being good at being an actor would somehow fill that void…So, people who are online making the comments really just want to make a mark. They want to have an effect. So, I think we suffer from the same thing, which is just a lack of attention and love.
Also on the table was Shia’s #IAMSORRY performance art exhibit, in which the actor extended an olive branch by having visitors sit with him one-on-one (paper bag non-negotiable).
I was really truly apologetic, so I was sort of like apologizing to the public in a way. So, I thought for sure people were gonna come in and be super mean from what I’d been reading. But it wasn’t that way at all…Once they got in there everything changed. They stopped looking at me as like an object they started looking at me as like a human and they were very loving.
So what finally got Shia LaBeouf to turn things around?
“Jail,” he explained, referring to his Cabaretshow arrest. “They put a Hannibal mask on me and a lead jacket. It was very scary.”
However, according to the actor, those dark days are now behind him: “I’m as good as I can be,” he told Ellen.
Click on the video above to watch Shia LaBeouf’s entire interview.
