Shia LaBeouf’s arrest in Recent Orleans within the early hours of Tuesday, as the town’s Mardi Gras celebrations were underway, is facing fresh scrutiny, as an alleged victim of the actor’s rampage that night says he was targeted within the confrontation, which he’s characterizing as an alleged hate crime.
The altercation that took place quarter-hour after midnight at R Bar in the town’s Faubourg Marigny neighborhood — video of which circulated widely online, showing the latter of a belligerent LaBeouf’s Jekyll and Hyde display as he was restrained outside the bar — left two bartenders injured and the actor facing two counts of straightforward assault; he was quickly released by early afternoon Tuesday on his own recognizance. He’s due back in court on March 19.
Jeffrey “Dammit,” a longtime local fixture and master of ceremonies at various Recent Orleans events, can be a Screen Actors Guild member who now resides and works in Hollywood a lot of the yr. He told The Hollywood Reporter on Wednesday that he makes multiple trips back to Recent Orleans annually; he first moved to The Big Easy in 1995 and over time, has taken various bartending jobs, including at R Bar. He said that his initial confrontation with the Transformers star began hours before the now-viral street scuffle.
“He smashed into me, knocking me into some boxes,” Jeffrey explained of his first encounter with LaBeouf around 5 p.m. on Monday. “Then he turned around screaming, ‘Don’t you fucking push me. I’ll kill you.’ I hadn’t touched him.” Jeffrey said he attempted to defuse the situation but alleges LaBeouf escalated things, putting a finger in his face and calling him a homophobic slur.
“He said he’d ‘kick my ass’ and called me a faggot,” Jeffrey said. “I told him I wasn’t going to fight him. I wasn’t giving him that.”
LaBeouf was out and in of the bar throughout Monday evening and appeared highly intoxicated. When he returned to the bar around midnight, he recalled, the situation had intensified.
“He was screaming at a bartender and needed to be escorted outside,” Jeffrey said. “Once outside, he began pacing on the street, yelling, ‘You’re all a bunch of fucking faggots. I’ll kick your ass.’ Jeffrey said he briefly intervened when a shirtless LaBeouf lunged at a staff member.
“I grabbed him and held him for lower than a minute so he wouldn’t beat up the bartender,” he said. “The bartender told me to let go, and I did.”
Moments later, he alleges, LaBeouf punched a second bartender within the face, breaking his nose. Video clips from outside the bar show LaBeouf being restrained as he continues shouting.
“He kept attempting to stand up and fight people,” Jeffrey said. “He wouldn’t stop screaming slurs. That’s why I say this wasn’t only a bar fight. This was about hate.”
Police, who he said needed to be flagged all the way down to quell the scene, took statements from Jeffrey and at the very least one R Bar bartender. LaBeouf was transported from the scene and later released on his own recognizance, based on court records. Recent videos circulated on social media showing the actor dancing on Bourbon Street after his release, with the actor holding his jail release paperwork in his mouth.
Jeffrey said the speed of that release surprised him.
“In many years of coming to Mardi Gras, I’ve at all times understood that if you happen to go to jail during Mardi Gras, you’re not getting out until after Ash Wednesday,” he said. “The one thing I’m surprised about is that anybody else would have been in jail.”
He added that the choice to release LaBeouf quickly “sends a terrible message” about accountability during one among the town’s busiest weeks.
Beyond the physical confrontation, Jeffrey said that the slurs and threats are what linger most.
“Anytime anyone insists on calling me a ‘faggot’ and threatening to harm me due to it — that’s not something you ever get used to,” he said. “I’ve worked in bars for years. I’ve seen fights. But when someone is screaming that word time and again while attempting to attack people, that’s different.”
He also expressed concern about skilled fallout, noting that each he and LaBeouf work within the entertainment industry.
“I might not feel secure running into him on a set,” he said. “If he could make a call and get out of jail before anybody else, what’s stopping him from making a call about my profession?” LaBeouf recently claimed to be sober and blamed past abusive behavior, a few of which led to a lawsuit over mental and physical abuse from his ex, musician FKA Twigs. Before his arrest in Recent Orleans on Tuesday, he went on an prolonged weekend bar crawl during Mardi Gras in Recent Orleans’ Uptown neighborhood, based on employees of varied drinking establishments.