Shia LaBeouf—who has spoken openly about his sobriety journey since 2020 and about how his past struggles with alcoholism brought him closer to Jesus—has been trying to clean up his act for nearly six years. In recent years, he began reemerging professionally, taking on roles in Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis” and David Mamet’s “Henry Johnson.”
Sadly, over the weekend, reports emerged of LaBeouf embarking on what was described as an extended-weekend bar crawl in New Orleans, allegedly lasting five days and involving several minor altercations—most of them centered around shirtless, binge-drinking behavior. A bartender told THR LaBoeuf was “terrorizing” the city.
By most accounts, he has fallen off the wagon. Those fears were seemingly confirmed when LaBeouf was arrested and charged with two counts of simple battery following a brawl outside a bar in the French Quarter, according to video obtained by TMZ.
I’ve interviewed LaBeouf a handful of times, and he has always struck me as a genuinely good person—intense, certainly, but clearly someone with demons perpetually at his door. Sobriety isn’t easy. The struggle is ongoing, and setbacks, no matter how public or painful, do not erase the progress he has made. Each stumble is a reminder of just how fragile and human that journey is.