Shia LaBeouf Trivia: 48 fascinating facts about the performance artist!

Shia LaBeouf is an American actor, performance artist, and director who became known among younger audiences as Louis Stevens in the Disney Channel series Even Stevens. LaBeouf received a Young Artist Award nomination in 2001 and won a Daytime Emmy Award in 2003 for his role.

Let’s see some interesting facts about him!

1. LaBeouf was born July 11, 1986 in Los Angeles, California.

2. He is the only child of Shayna and Jeffrey Craig LaBeouf.[3] His mother is a dancer and ballerina turned visual artist and clothing jewelry designer.[4] His father is a Vietnam War veteran who had numerous jobs.

3. LaBeouf’s mother is Jewish, and his father, who is of Cajun descent, is Christian.

4. LaBeouf has described himself as Jewish, and has stated that he was raised around “both sides”, he had a Bar Mitzvah ceremony, and was also baptized in the Angelus church.

5. One of the camps he attended was Christian.

6. His first name is derived from the Hebrew shai Yah, meaning “gift of God”.

7. LaBeouf has described his parents as “hippies”, his father as “tough as nails and a different breed of man”, and his upbringing as similar to a “hippy lifestyle”, stating that his parents were “pretty weird people, but they loved me and I loved them.”

8. During his childhood, he accompanied his father to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous.

9. LaBeouf has also said he was subjected to verbal and mental abuse by his father, who once pointed a gun at his son during a Vietnam War flashback.

10. LaBeouf has stated that his father was “on drugs” during his childhood, and was placed in drug rehabilitation for heroin addiction, while LaBeouf’s mother was “trying to hold down the fort.”

11. His parents eventually divorced, mainly owing to financial problems, and LaBeouf had what he has described as a “good childhood”, growing up poor in Echo Park with his mother, who worked selling fabrics and brooches.

12. LaBeouf’s uncle was going to adopt him at one stage because his parents could not afford to have him anymore and “they had too much pride to go on welfare or food stamps.”

13. As a way of dealing with his parents’ divorce, he would perform for his family, mimicking his father.

14. LaBeouf remains close to and financially supports both of his parents.

15. He attended 32nd Street Visual and Performing Arts Magnet in Los Angeles (LAUSD) and Alexander Hamilton High School, although he received most of his education from tutors.

16. In an interview, LaBeouf said that, looking back on his childhood, he feels grateful and considers some of those memories scars.

17. When he was young, he and his parents would dress up like clowns and sell hot dogs in the park across the street from their apartment. They lived in Echo Park, Los Angeles, California.

18. Ever wonder why Shia got into acting? He said in an interview it’s because his family was poor and he wanted to find a way to make a lot of money to support them and himself.

19. Shia LaBeouf’s last name is spelled incorrectly. “In French, LaBeouf means ‘beef,’ but mine is spelled wrong. It should be ‘LaBoeuf,'” he told Parade magazine in 2008.

20. French people make fun of his name. “Shia is a bad four-letter word in French. So the literal translation of my name is ‘S–t the Beef.’ However, Shia is Hebrew for “Gift from God.”

21. Shia attended 32nd Street USC Visual and Performing Arts Magnet in Los Angeles when he was younger.

22. Shia got his big break at age 13 as the star of the Disney Channel sitcom Even Stevens.

23. He won a Daytime Emmy Award in 2003 for his role on Even Stevens.
24. He loved playing basketball with “Lizzie McGuire” star Adam Lamberg.
25. He attended the Hamilton Academy of Music in Los Angeles, California, along with actors such as Emile Hirsch, Fernanda Romero, Frank Miranda Will Rothhaar, Rachel Kiri Walker, Candace Lifson, Kyla Pratt, Kaitlin Doubleday and Cherish Lee.

26. What’s one of his most embarrassing moments? While on set shooting Holes in 2003, his father came to visit him and started flirting with Shia’s co-star, Sigourney Weaver. “That’s the most embarrassed you’ll ever be as a human.”

27. Shia considers The Greatest Game Ever Played as his transition movie from child actor to adult actor.

28. From 2004 to 2007, LaBeouf dated China Brezner, whom he met on the set of The Greatest Game Ever Played. Unfortunately, the broke up due to conflicting schedules.

29. He dated English actress and Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps co-star Carey Mulligan from August 2009 to October 2010.

30. He was accepted to Yale which was his first choice of University in high school, but he chose to focus on his acting career instead. So far, the decision has served him well.

31. Shia has a tattoo of a paw print on his left shoulder.

32. He has a scar on his ribs from a fight scene while filming the movie Disturbia (2007).

33. In July 2014, about a week before his Broadway outburst (more on that later), Shia was caught on video outside of a NYC strip club trying to start a fight with someone. Shia is no stranger to fistcuffs, but the weird thing about this particular event is the location and that the man he was trying to get in a brawl with was a total stranger.

34. His favorite food is Mexican food – bring on the tacos and burritos.

35. In 2008, he was booked for a DUI after getting into a accident which caused him to have extensive hand surgery which caused delays of Transformers 2.

36. His driver’s license was suspended for a year in January 2009, as a consequence of refusing blood-alcohol-level testing after his car accident in 2008.

37. Shia LaBeouf is the co-owner and founder of an independent film company, Grassy Slope, along with his best friend and fellow actor Lorenzo Eduardo.

38. He considers his second father and mentor to be Jon Voight, Angelina Jolie’s father. The two worked together in 2003′s Holes and have been close.

39. Shia went full-frontal nude in a 2012 French music video.

40. He is Selena Gomez’s ideal man.

41. Shia is short-sighted and wears contact lenses.

42. He celebrates Christmas and Hanukkah.

43. Some of his favorite musicians include System of a Down, 50 Cent, Eminem, D12, Led Zeppelin, Jack Johnson, Ben Folds and others.

44. During a press conference in Berlin for Lars Von Trier’s Nymphomaniac Part 1, Shia arrived looking scruffy and was quite throughout the conference. At the end when he was asked a question, he answered: “When the seagulls follow the trawler, it’s because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea,” and then got up and left. However, this “quote” was first made by Eric Cantona, a football player for Manchester United.

45. In November 2014, LaBeouf stated that a woman “stripped [his] clothing and proceeded to rape [him]” the previous February at his Los Angeles art installation #IAMSORRY. LaBeouf’s artist collaborators, Nastja Säde Rönkkö and Luke Turner, stated that as soon as they were aware of the incident starting to occur, they “put a stop to it.”

46. Shia’s audition for the Nymphomaniac was quite…strange. For those who don’t know, apparently the actor took pictures of his equipment and recorded himself having sex with his girlfriend, and then sent them to Lars. And the role was his.

47. The first time we saw Shia wearing his now-infamous “I AM NOT FAMOUS ANYMORE” paper bag over his head was on the red carpet at the Berlin Film Festival, where he was premiering the Nymphomaniac. The act was not just limited to the costume, either. When an interviewer tried to ask Shia about it, the actor simply answered, “I’m a bag. Ask me a bag question.”

48. Shia decided to attend the musical Cabaret at Studio 54 in Broadway some time ago where clearly intoxicated, he was smoking in the crowd, yelling profanities at the performers as well as fellow audience members and even slapped a few people. When security eventually came to confront him, he took it all a step forward and created a scene by screaming at them. Next, he was escorted out and subsequently arrested. And when he was released the next morning, he was just a big mess.