Shia LeBeouf Admits He Lied About Being Abused While Promoting Honey Boy

Transformers franchise star Shia LaBeouf is once again making tabloid headlines after admitting that much of what he wrote in Honey Boy, a movie that presented the story of a child actor's relationship to his father, was "nonsense." Appearing on Real Ones With Jon Bernthal, LeBeouf said that while his father had issues, it was nothing like what was presented in Honey Boy. The movie was never presented as strictly true, but given the similarities between Honey Boy's Otis and LaBeouf's own childhood, it was widely assumed he was writing an autobiographical story. During the press tour for the film, LaBeouf repeatedly confirmed those suspicions.

The film debuted at Sundance in 2019, and would go on to get a wider release via Amazon Studios. It is the best-reviewed film LaBeouf has appeared in, according to Rotten Tomatoes.

"I wrote this narrative, which was just fucking nonsense," LaBeouf said. "My dad was so loving to me my whole life. Fractured, sure. Crooked, sure. Wonky, for sure. But never was not loving, never was not there. He was always there...and I'd done a world press tour about how fucked he was as a man."

Alma Har'el won praise for directing Honey Boy, which was her debut feature. She's currently working on Lady in the Lake for Apple TV+. It reunites her with Honey Boy star Noah Jupe, and stars Natalie Portman and Moses Ingram. Over the weekend, production on Lady in the Lake had to be suspended after a report that gunmen attempted to extort money from the film crew.

LaBeouf has been dealing with his own very public PR issues. The star was set to appear in filmmaker Olivia Wilde's Don't Worry, Darling, the much-anticipated follow-up to her 2019 hit Booksmart. After an apparent falling out with Wilde, LaBeouf seemingly quit the project, and was replaced by Harry Styles. When Wilde began dating Styles, it created even more drama on the film's set, and the bad vibes dredged the LaBeouf conflict back up in the press. During an interview, a comment Wilde made was interpreted to mean she had fired LaBeouf, and the actor has been firing back with a string of accusations, leaked emails and videos. The film, set to debut in late September, is one of Warner Bros. Discovery's only big theatrical releases for the remainder of the year, and its box office fortunes now seem very much in doubt.