The Surprising Reason for the New Homophobia

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Long ago, the bright-eyed Disney Channel star Shia LaBeouf entered adulthood and set about to become a great man. He studied method acting; he worked with edgy directors; he groaned and screamed like Al Pacino. But those ambitious days are now a distant memory. LaBeouf hasn’t anchored a box-office hit in more than a decade, and little of his 2020s art-house work has drawn buzz. The most notable thing he’s starred in lately was a clip of him on a podcaster’s couch, hunched and diminished, talking about his fear of gay people.

LaBeouf recently spent a night in jail after getting into a series of bar fights in New Orleans. Videos and images of what looked like a belligerent bender spread across the internet, and police reports allege he threw around the word faggot during his arrest. “Big gay people are scary to me,” LaBeouf said, addressing the incident in an interview with the YouTuber Andrew Callaghan that was posted in late February. “When I’m, like, standing by myself and three gay dudes are next to me touching my leg, I get scared.” Callaghan asked for details, and LaBeouf physically crumpled, trying to stop himself from saying more. But soon he brought up gay people again, then again. He summed up his feelings by paraphrasing what the Bible says about homosexuality: “Nah.”