The actor Shia LaBeouf was charged with two counts of simple battery in New Orleans on Tuesday after reportedly assaulting two people, the police said.
At around 12:45 a.m., the authorities were called to Royal Street, an area in the French Quarter lined with restaurants, hotels and shops, in response to reports of an assault, according to a news release from the New Orleans Police Department.
Investigators said that LaBeouf, 39, had caused a disturbance and was “becoming increasingly aggressive” at an unidentified business, and that a staff member had tried to eject the actor from the establishment.
Once LaBeouf had been removed, the news release said, one of the victims “reported being struck by LaBeouf, who used his closed fists on the victim several times.”
The victim told the police that LaBeouf left but then returned behaving even more aggressively. Several people tried to hold down LaBeouf, who later struck the same victim again with a closed fist to the upper body and punched another person in the nose.
After being treated at a hospital for unknown injuries, LaBeouf was arrested and charged with two counts of simple battery, a misdemeanor.
A representative for LaBeouf did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.
LaBeouf, best known for his work in “Transformers” and “Megalopolis,” has been accused of violent behavior before. In December 2020, the musician FKA twigs, his former girlfriend, filed a lawsuit accusing him of sexual battery and assault.
When the suit was filed, LaBeouf told The New York Times that many of the allegations were untrue and that he had “no excuses for my alcoholism or aggression, only rationalizations.” He said that for years he had been abusive to himself and others, adding, “I’m ashamed of that history and am sorry to those I hurt.”
Last summer, LaBeouf and FKA twigs settled the case in what a lawyer for LaBeouf described as a spirit of “forging a constructive path forward.”
Derrick Bryson Taylor is a Times reporter covering breaking news in culture and the arts.
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