Entertainment

The Shia Move We've All Been Waiting For

by Lia Beck

There is a new chapter to the Shia LaBeouf WTF saga of 2014 and it may be the last. Probably not, but maybe. A couple days ago when LaBeouf received a cease and desist letter from the lawyers of Daniel Clowes, the man he plagiarized, we thought that might be the end of things, but like every other point where this whole thing could've been over, LaBeouf decided to jump over the fence of reason and continue ever onward toward the horizon of sociopathy. This time, Shia LaBeouf has declared that he's retiring from public life and, as always, he spread the news on Twitter.

Just for a quick recap of what's going on here, LaBeouf plagiarized the work of writer Daniel Clowes in a short film he sent to Cannes last year, then he plagiarized his apologies to Clowes and wrote another apology across the sky, then he received a cease and desist letter from Clowes' lawyers and posted the entire thing on Twitter with a bunch more plagiarism-related stuff that made it seem like he thinks the whole thing is a joke.

But now, LaBeouf has decided to quit public life. The artist formerly known as Louis Stevens wrote a series of tweets regarding his retirement plans.

As you can see, these tweets were written a whole seven hours ago and LaBeouf still hasn't been back on Twitter. It's very impressive. He also replaced his header photo with a scan of the cease and desist letter with all the words blacked out except the phrase "he must stop all efforts to create."

There's no way of knowing to what extent LaBeouf has retired from public life. He could only be leaving Twitter or he could be fully embracing the hermit lifestyle. We don't know! LaBeouf has a new film, Lars Von Trier's Nymphomaniac, premiering in February at the Berlin International Film Festival. Maybe he'll pop up there. Or maybe he'll just make his presence known through sky writing: "I am here. I am Shia. I MUST CREATE!" Spooooooky!

Image: Getty