Photo: REX USA/Camilla Morandi.
Another day, another bizarre twist in the ongoing saga that is Shia LaBeouf. After a streak of increasingly odd behavior that's led some observers to question the actor's sanity, LaBeouf tweeted yesterday that he's going to lay low for a while. A very long while. "In light of the recent attacks against my artistic integrity," he wrote, "I am retiring from all public life."
In case you've just come back from a month-long trek through the Himalayas, and you're totally baffled by what that cute kid you loved in Even Stevens is talking about, let us catch you up to speed. Late last year, it was revealed that LaBeouf plagiarized his short film HowardCantour.com directlly from the book Justin M. Damiano by Daniel Clowes. He then plagiarized his apology to the author from a Yahoo Answers Page, hired a plane to facetiously write, "I Am Sorry Daniel Clowes" across the L.A. sky, and most recently, tweeted a copy of the cease-and-desist letter sent to LaBeouf by Clowes' attorney.
No one really knows what the impetus is behind the actor's latest transgressions, but according to LaBeouf's tweet, he was simply expressing himself artistically. He followed his retirement tweet with, "My love goes out to those who have supported me" and "#stopcreating." Apparently for LaBeouf, creating means stealing other people's work and not giving them due credit, but we digress. Have fun in retirement, Shia. We hear Florida is amazing this time of year. (Chicago Tribune)