I’m not sure what to make of Mr. LaBeouf after this “Dazed” interview.

Lately, he’s been conducting everything from his public apologies to interviews in artsy ways – and in this recent interaction with “Dazed” magazine, he indicated he was raped at his own art show. If Mr. LaBeouf actually got assaulted during his art performance, that’s horrible wrapped in horrible. But I feel like I have a reason to be skeptical. I’m a skeptical person anyway because normal people lie. Actors are paid to lie – so they’re pretty good at it. And an actor who’s still catching crap for plagiarizing someone else’s work (incidentally, the whole reason he was doing that art performance he alleges he was raped at) has a motive to work his professionally deceptive skill set (hint: pity). And someone who has public opinion against them, has a reason to go for public pity (I’m not sayin’ – I’m just sayin’.) But as I sat watching this “silent interview” with the female reporter to whom he’d given the online interview, something else felt strange, familiar, and uncomfortable about it. Like my mind had been kicked again after a roundhouse to my brain’s face – a mental double tap. I kept sifting through the details of the digital interview to see if I could find the source of this discomfort, while this dome laden Go-Pro non-interview played in the background:

Hold on. My contact fell out from too much eye-roll.

Since I didn’t know anything about the now scandalous “performance art piece” he did that’s been the headline today, I read it over to get a bit of background while these two giggled amidst ambient hotel noise. Basically, he sat in a room during a performance he called #IAMSORRY and let people filter in – one by one – to do whatever they wanted to him. It was meant to be a kind of penance for plagiarizing. And then, he says one woman came in, whipped his legs for a while, and then raped him. Gee…Triple-tap! I’ve been hit three times in the brain, now.

What is happening? What does this remind me of?

Could it be… that he used Marina’s Rhythm 0 for his Mea Culpa?

And her “The Artist Is Present” as an excuse to not have to answer inquiries off the cuff?

I only love art when it’s exactly that – present. You’re giving me your whole when-nobody’s-looking truth. Your unhindered by ulterior egoic motives truth. And I love when actors give art a try – if they are willing to be honest regardless of consequences (like being dubbed “weird” for it. #Franco). But that’s the thing. Art is meant to say something about something genuine. When Marina did her piece, it wasn’t some act of reconciliation to alter a marred public image. When she did “The Artist is Present’ – it was about sitting in the undistracted gaze of a miscellany of strangers. No identifiable motive beyond marinating in the human experience fully. No obvious self-serving purpose. It was just about what the name says: being present.

So Shia’s appropriation of it? It’s almost worse than plagiarism.

It’s meta-thievery.

I really hope homie finds authentic happiness. And it’s no-joke horrifying if he got raped like he says he was (although, at what point during a performance do you not intervene with your “craft” and say “time out. That’s my penis you’re on”…? Guess I’m not enough of an ‘artist’ to understand :/ ) Assault or not, it seems like the poor guy’s been done in by fame. And I’m pretty sure he’s had the kind of psychological break from reality where you start out by nicking another writer’s work – and then you pour gasoline on the flames of your wrongdoing by nicking an artist’s work as the vessel for your public apology.

Then again, maybe he’s really smart and this is all an art within art performance.

Like we’re all getting trolled. He’s knowingly apologizing for plagiarizing by plagiarizing.

And the subtext is actually #IAMSORRYNOTSORRY

Well played, Shia. Well played.