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Shia LaBeouf's Artistic Collaborators Confirm He Was Raped During #IAMSORRY Show
Shia LaBeouf at a press conference at the Berlin Film Festival Feb. 9 (Photo by Andreas Rentz/Getty Images)
Two of the artists who worked with Shia LaBeouf for his art show #IAMSORRY confirmed the actor/performance artist's allegations that a woman raped him during his February performance.
Last week LaBeouf revealed in an interview that during his performance art piece at a gallery on Beverly a woman "whipped my legs for ten minutes and then stripped my clothing and proceeded to rape me." His collaborators—Finnish performance artist Nastja Säde Rönkkö and "meta-modernist pioneer" Luke Turner—both went on Twitter to confirm the story and detail their response to the incident.
A couple of important clarifications about our #IAMSORRY project earlier this year:
— Nastja Säde Rönkkö (@NastjaRonkko) November 30, 2014
Nowhere did we state that people could do whatever they wanted to Shia during #IAMSORRY.
— Nastja Säde Rönkkö (@NastjaRonkko) November 30, 2014
As soon as we were aware of the incident starting to occur, we put a stop to it and ensured that the woman left.
— Nastja Säde Rönkkö (@NastjaRonkko) November 30, 2014
Piers Morgan asked why they let the woman walk away and Turner responded:
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LaBeouf staged a sort of apology tour earlier this year after he was caught plagiarizing Daniel Clowes' work. In his performance piece, LaBeouf sat at a table face-to-face with anyone who visited in a room that contained a vase of daisies, a copy of Daniel Clowes' "Death Ray" book, a rusty wrench, a whip, a pink ukulele, a bottle of perfume, a Transformers toy and a bowl with tweets people have written to him. It drew on the work of many performance artists. Here's LaBeouf's full description of the rape allegations from his interview with Dazed and Confused:
One woman who came with her boyfriend, who was outside the door when this happened, whipped my legs for ten minutes and then stripped my clothing and proceeded to rape me… There were hundreds of people in line when she walked out with dishevelled hair and smudged lipstick. It was no good, not just for me but her man as well. On top of that my girl was in line to see me, because it was Valentine’s Day and I was living in the gallery for the duration of the event - we were separated for five days, no communication. So it really hurt her as well, as I guess the news of it travelled through the line. When she came in she asked for an explanation, and I couldn’t speak, so we both sat with this unexplained trauma silently. It was painful.
Related:
Shia LaBeouf: Woman Raped Me During My #IAMSORRY Gallery Show
Shia LaBeouf Sets Up Shop At Los Angeles Gallery To Say He's Sorry
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