Shia LaBeouf Knows His Daughter Will See He’s ‘Deplorable’ From Online News
.Shia LaBeouf is afraid of what his 5-month-old daughter Isabel will read about him when she is older and looks him up on the internet. LaBeouf, who shares Isabel with wife Mia Goth, opened up about his “spiritual growth path” and fatherhood in a new interview.
The Honey Boy star addressed how he had “f—ed up bad, crash and burn type of s—” and “hurt a lot of people.” He says that becoming a dad was like hitting “some kind of weird reset button.” “She’s testing me,” he said of his daughter. “It’s almost like having the ultimate parole officer, the ultimate probation officer. I need somebody to keep me accountable because freedom without guidelines or limitations is f—ing madness.”
Calling his child “so f—ing joyful,” Shia said Isabel has given him “a new purpose” that he didn’t have before. He adds that he is “learning how to be a man of principles.”
“There’s a lot I need to work on,” the 36-year-old actor said. He is aware that once Isabel can navigate the web, she will be able to read about his troubled past. “Having a daughter and knowing that your daughter is one day gonna search your name in a search engine and see that you are a deplorable, disgusting, piece of s—… and that s— hits,” Shia said. “I have from now until she’s literate to create a relationship with her where she knows me more than this idea of who I am in the public.”
For Shia, that means making amends with what he described as a “long list of people.” “I was a pleasure-seeking, selfish, self-centered, dishonest, inconsiderate, fearful human being and I was operating on a survival instinct,” he recalled. “All my loves and friendships were transactional.” Though he didn’t specifically name who is included on that list, Shia did acknowledge that “for my wife, I’ll be making amends for the rest of my life.”
“That’s going to be a lifelong journey,” Shia added, admitting that he “cheated on every woman I’d ever been with.”
Later in the interview, Shia detailed how he got back together with Mia after their 2018 split saying, “I don’t know nothing like this relationship, I never have in my life. To re-enter and be a part of my life, she had to take a hit. What I know love to be is selfless, loving action—and I’ve never known anything as loving or selflessly active as what this woman did for me in my life.”
According to Shia, Mia was the first person to reach out to him when he was in rehab amid allegations of sexual abuse. “She saved my f—ing life,” Shia said in tears, “She was present for me at a time when I didn’t deserve to have nobody in my life, especially her. She gave me hope when I was really running on fumes.”
Moving forward with his relationship with Mia today, Shia hopes that he can return the unconditional love she gave him by stepping up to be a strong support system for his family. “It doesn’t make me useful to my wife to shame spiral,” he explained. “It makes me useful to show up for my wife and be stable for my wife. People may not forgive me, but I know that I have been forgiven and I know that I am loved.”
