Shia LaBeouf’s arrest in New Orleans in the early hours of Tuesday, as the city’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 in the confrontation, which he is characterizing as an alleged hate crime.
The altercation that took place 15 minutes after midnight at R Bar in the city’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 simple assault; he was quickly released by early afternoon Tuesday on his own recognizance. He is due back in court on March 19.
Jeffrey “Dammit,” a longtime local fixture and master of ceremonies at various New Orleans events, is also a Screen Actors Guild member who now resides and works in Hollywood most of the year. He told The Hollywood Reporter on Wednesday that he makes multiple trips back to New Orleans annually; he first moved to The Big Easy in 1995 and over the years, 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 in and out 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 had to be escorted outside,” Jeffrey said. “Once outside, he started pacing in 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 less 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 in the face, breaking his nose. Video clips from outside the bar show LaBeouf being restrained as he continues shouting.
“He kept trying to get up and fight people,” Jeffrey said. “He wouldn’t stop screaming slurs. That’s why I say this wasn’t just a bar fight. This was about hate.”
Police, who he said had to be flagged down to quell the scene, took statements from Jeffrey and at least one R Bar bartender. LaBeouf was transported from the scene and later released on his own recognizance, according to court records. New 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 decades of coming to Mardi Gras, I’ve always understood that if you go to jail during Mardi Gras, you’re not getting out until after Ash Wednesday,” he said. “The only thing I’m surprised about is that anybody else would have been in jail.”
He added that the decision to release LaBeouf quickly “sends a terrible message” about accountability during one of the city’s busiest weeks.
Beyond the physical confrontation, Jeffrey said that the slurs and threats are what linger most.
“Anytime somebody insists on calling me a ‘faggot’ and threatening to hurt me because of 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 over and over while trying to attack people, that’s different.”
He also expressed concern about professional fallout, noting that both he and LaBeouf work in the entertainment industry.
“I would not feel safe 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 career?” LaBeouf recently claimed to be sober and blamed past abusive behavior, some of which led to a lawsuit over mental and physical abuse from his ex, musician FKA Twigs. Before his arrest in New Orleans on Tuesday, he went on an extended weekend bar crawl during Mardi Gras in New Orleans’ Uptown neighborhood, according to employees of various drinking establishments.
