FKA Twigs shuts down Gayle King’s question amid Shia LaBeouf lawsuit

FKA Twigs has given an emotional TV interview about her allegations against Shia LaBeouf - but there was one question she refused to answer.

FKA Twigs has shut down a contentious question by veteran journalist Gayle King during a TV interview about her ex-boyfriend, Shia LaBeouf.

The British singer, 33, dated the Transformers actor from 2018 to 2019, and filed a lawsuit against him in December accusing him of sexual battery, assault and infliction of emotional distress.

CBS’ King, 66, prefaced Twigs with the question, saying she “often wonders if it’s an appropriate question to ask”, before saying, “Why didn’t you leave?”

Twigs said people needed to “stop asking that question”.

“I know you’re asking it out of love but I’m going to make a stance and say that I’m not going to answer that question anymore,” she said.

“The question should be to the abuser, ‘Why are you holding someone hostage with abuse?’ You know?

“People say it can’t have been that bad or else she would have left, and it’s like, no it’s because it was that bad (that) I couldn’t leave.”

RELATED: Shia LaBeouf’s controversial life

FKA Twigs broke down during the interview.

The star also broke down in tears as she claimed LaBeouf nearly “killed them both” as he allegedly threatened to crash their car during their year-long “abusive” relationship.

In December 2020, Twigs filed a lawsuit against LaBeouf, 34, claiming he abused her “physically, emotionally and mentally many times” throughout their relationship.

She claimed that around Valentine’s Day in 2019, the two took a “disturbing” trip to a spa in Palm Springs.

On their return drive to Los Angeles, he was “speeding down the motorway and saying that if I said I didn’t love him and if I was going to leave him, he would smash the car to the side of a wall”.

The singer – whose real name is Tahliah Debrett Barnett – claimed: “When I thought, ‘Wow, he needs so much control over me that he would kill us both.’

“Eventually, he pulled over to a gas station and I tried to unload my bags from the car and there were three men opposite the car and I remember thinking, ‘This is it, I’m done, I can’t do this anymore.’

Twigs then claimed: “He picked me up, threw me against the car and started strangling me.

“That’s when I realised I need help to get out of this relationship,” she said as she claimed that the three men at the gas station didn’t help and simply watched. “I felt so alone.”

The British musician then claimed she called a helpline for domestic abuse victims.

“After that weekend and going back to where I was staying, I looked at myself in the mirror and one side of me was, like, completely black. And I was so shocked, you know?”

The singer began to cry at this point in the interview.

She continued: “So I’ve gone back to where I was staying, and the whole one side of my body is black and blue.

“And I remember thinking, you know, I’m a dancer and I really love my body, and I take such good care of it.

“And I was looking at my body and I just thought, ‘Where did it all go wrong? How am I here?’ I never saw this for my life.”

RELATED: Sia opens up about past relationship with Shia LaBeouf

Shia LaBeouf. Picture: Kevin Winter/Getty Images

In the same interview, Twigs claimed he forced her to sleep naked so she was always “available” to him.

She claimed LaBeouf “would often start an argument with me in the middle of the night”.

“He would start accusing me of doing all sorts of things, planning to leave him in my head,” she alleged. “That I was disgusting and vile.

“Nothing was ever true but I would really doubt myself, especially when I would wake up, and he would be like, ‘You were lying there with your eyes open, planning to leave me.’ And I would be like, ‘I was literally asleep.’

“He would only want me to sleep naked because he said if I didn’t, I was keeping myself from him.

“It’s this tactic that a lot of abusers use, it’s just this constant availability and everything’s centred around them.

“That’s why I wanted to come out and talk about this because the signs really are [there] from the beginning.”

This was Twigs’ first filmed interview since she filed a lawsuit against LaBeouf, claiming he abused her.

She accused him in court documents of “relentless abuse,” including sexual battery, assault, and infliction of emotional distress.

Twigs also alleged that LaBeouf “knowingly” gave her a sexually transmitted disease.

At the time, LaBeouf told The New York Times in an email: “I’m not in any position to tell anyone how my behaviour made them feel.

“I have no excuses for my alcoholism or aggression, only rationalisations. I have been abusive to myself and everyone around me for years.

“I have a history of hurting the people closest to me.

“I’m ashamed of that history and am sorry to those I hurt. There is nothing else I can really say.”

RELATED: FKA Twigs says LaBeouf banned her from looking at other men

FKA Twigs. Picture: Jason Merritt/Getty Images

In a separate email after he was presented with the claims and the lawsuit, he told New York Times that “many of these allegations are not true”.

The Honey Boy actor acknowledged that he owed the women “the opportunity to air their statements publicly and accept accountability for those things I have done”.

He added that he was “a sober member of a 12-step program” and was currently in therapy.

He said: “But I am committed to doing what I need to do to recover, and I will forever be sorry to the people that I may have harmed along the way.”

Following Twigs’ claims, LaBeouf’s lawyer, Shawn Holley, told Variety: “Shia needs help and he knows that.”

She added: “We are actively seeking the kind of meaningful, intensive, long-term inpatient treatment that he desperately needs.”

He has also been fired from future movie projects and dropped by his talent agency.

This story originally appeared on The Sun and has been reproduced here with permission