Shia LaBeouf says he 'wronged' his father with his portrayal in Honey Boy
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Shia LaBeouf is setting the record straight on his complicated bond with his father, Jeffrey Craig LaBeouf.
The actor — who wrote and starred in the 2019 film Honey Boy based on their relationship — revealed that he exacerbated elements in the film's script to fit a narrative that would cast him in a positive light.
"I wrote this narrative which was just f------ nonsense. My dad was so loving to me my whole life. Fractures? Sure. Crooked? Sure. Wonky? For sure, but never was not loving, never was not there. He was always there," LaBeouf said on Jon Bernthal's Real Ones podcast. "And I'd done a world press tour about how f------ he was as a man. Honey Boy is basically like a big 'woe is me' story about how f------ my father is and I wronged him."
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In the film, LaBeouf stars as James Lort — a character unambiguously inspired by his father — alongside Lucas Hedges, Noah Jupe, and LaBeouf's former girlfriend FKA Twigs, who sued him in 2020 for alleged "relentless abuse."
The Disney Channel alum explained that his father later pointed out the discrepancies between the script that he received and LaBeouf's on-screen portrayal. "I remember getting on the phone with him and him being like, 'You know, I never read this stuff in the script you sent.' Because I didn't put that s--- in there," he shared. "I was bulls------- him. I was just trying to get him to sign this piece of paper."
Contrast this with what LaBeouf told EW in 2019, when he said that he read the script to his father at an automotive shop in Central America. "Somehow I think the productivity of what was underneath us sort of rose up through the floors, and we were working on us like a car. It felt like quite mechanical." He added, "He looks over to me, his eyes well up, pride starts thumping in his chest, and he says, 'Well alright, make me look good honey boy.'"
LaBeouf claims on Bernthal's podcast that he "turned the knob up on certain s--- that wasn't real" within the movie's storyline. "My dad never hit me. Never. He spanked me once. One time," he admitted. "And the story that gets painted in Honey Boy is like this dude was abusing his kid all the time."
In actuality, LaBeouf confessed that his father spanked him once as a child for smoking a cigarette in a bathroom. "But that wasn't my narrative," he continued, "because it didn't position me as this wounded, fractured child that you could root for, which is what I was using him for."
Instead, his father became a way to pin the blame onto someone else. "Here's a man who I've done vilified on a grand scale," LaBeouf said. "I put all his s--- in the street and used him…as like, 'This is the reason why I'm f------ foul out here. I come from this wayward upbringing. My dad is the reason I'm such a f--- up. He's a biker and a wildman and a criminal and abusive.'"
Following a stay in Utah, LaBeouf attempted to make amends with his father. "When I got on the phone with him, I took accountability for all that and knew very clearly that I couldn't take it back," he said. "And that my dad was going to live with this certain narrative about him, on a public scale, for a very long time. Probably the rest of his life."
He later reconciled with his dad and helped him receive treatment for multiple physical ailments, including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The actor, who revealed that he is 627 days sober in a recent letter, also supported his father on his own sobriety journey. LaBeouf called it "probably the crowning achievement of any amends I've made."
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