© Gary GershoffThe singer wasn't allowed to look men in the eye and was expected to meet a daily quota of affection
FKA Twigs was "left with PTSD" after dating Shia LaBeouf. The singer is currently suing him for physical, mental and emotional abuse.
Talking in Louis Theroux's podcast, Grounded, Twigs - real name Tahliah Debrett Barnett - she described his abusive behaviour which took place in 2019 when the two were in a relationship.
"For me it was being nice to a waiter or being polite to somebody that could be seen as me flirting or want to engage in some sort of relationship with somebody else when I'm literally just ordering pasta and being polite," she said, according to the BBC.
"I was told that I knew what he was like, and if I loved him I wouldn't look men in the eye. So that was my reality for a good four months towards the end of the relationship, that I wasn't allowed to look men in the eye."
Barnett said she had to meet a daily quota of affection towards LaBeouf, meaning that she had to kiss him a certain number of times every day and repeat how much she cared for him. None of this would appease her then boyfriend, who would still wake her up in the night "to accuse me of all sorts of things".
© Melodie JengShia LaBeouf and FKA Twigs in Paris in 2018
"[He would] accuse me of staring at the ceiling and thinking about ways to leave him... accusing me of wanting to be with somebody else but it would be, always - I'd say between like four and seven in the morning," she said.
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"For a long time anything that woke me up in the night, even if it was just my dog, or a noise outside, or just needing to go to the bathroom, it could trigger a really intense panic attack."
Eventually, Barnett called an abuse helpline which served as a "massive wake-up call" that prompted her to leave. The experience had serious repercussions on her mental health and she left with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) .
She says the condition "is just something that I don't think we really talk about as a society just in terms of the healing when leaving, and how much work that has to be done to recover, to get back to the person that you were before."
In a statement, LaBeouf said: "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."