FKA Twigs’ Lawsuit Against Shia LaBeouf Postpones Trial Start Date Until 2024
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The trial for FKA Twigs’ “relentless abuse” lawsuit against former boyfriend and actor Shia LaBeouf has been postponed from its scheduled 2023 start date until October 2024.
In the lawsuit filed back in December 2020, the singer — real name Tahliah Debrett Barnett — accused LaBeouf of sexual battery, assault, and infliction of emotional distress. The lawsuit also includes similar allegations from Karolyn Pho, a stylist, and another LaBeouf ex who accused the actor of drunkenly pinning her to a bed and head-butting her.
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After mediation failed to bring a settlement between the parties, a Los Angeles superior court set an April 2023 court date for the lawsuit. However, as Pitchfork reports, the trial date was postponed to November 2023, with both sides ultimately agreeing in late August to push the trial even further, tentatively to October 14, 2024.
According to Pitchfork, necessary depositions for both sides have been hindered by both Twigs’ scheduling issues and LaBeouf’s “entertainment projects,” while one of Twigs’ lawyers would have been on maternity leave had the trial started in November 2023.
In the lawsuit, Barnett claimed LaBeouf tried to choke her multiple times, including once during a violent attack at a gas station in February 2019. LaBeouf “threw Tahliah against the car and attempted to strangle her violently while screaming in her face,” her lawsuit said.
Earlier that day, LaBeouf allegedly threw Barnett to the ground outside a hotel they had visited for Valentine’s Day, and on the ride home, before the gas station attack, he was driving “maniacally” when he removed his seatbelt and threatened “to crash the car unless Tahliah professed her eternal love for him,” her paperwork claims.
“It may be surprising to you to learn that I was in an emotionally and physically abusive relationship. It was hard for me to process, too, during and after,” Barnett said in an Instagram post that coincided with her filing. “I never thought something like this would happen to me. Which is why I have decided it’s important for me to talk about it and try to help people understand that when you are under the coercive control of an abuser or in an intimate partner violent relationship, leaving doesn’t feel like a safe or achievable option.”
While LaBeouf initially apologized in a statement following the lawsuit’s filing — “I have been abusive to myself and everyone around me for years. I have a history of hurting the people closest to me” — he later denied Barnett’s allegations in a February 2021 answer to her complaint, stating through his lawyers that he denied causing Barnett “any injury or loss” and that she is not “entitled to any relief or damages whatsoever.”
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