Shia LaBeouf Converts To Catholicism After Battling Shame And Suicidal Thoughts: "I Had A Gun On The Table"

He rose to fame for his role in the Disney show "Even Stevens," but Shia LaBeouf has since created a robust acting career for himself. His upcoming film Padre Pio led him to a spiritual awakening that resulted in his conversion to Catholicism. In a longform interview with Word on Fire Catholic Ministries' Bishop Robert Barron, he revealed the struggles he faced prior to discovering the Catholic religion and talked about why Latin Mass is so meaningful to him.

Shia LaBeouf Converts to Catholicism After Battling Shame and Suicidal Thoughts

Shia lived with a monastery of Franciscan Capuchin friars in preparation for Padre Pio, in which he portrayed the late mystic St. Padre Pio. He says he was in the darkest period of his life before he started working on the film and he was interested in spirituality; he tried out a variety of faith groups as he was fighting thoughts of suicide.

"I had a gun on the table. I was outta here," Shia admitted. "I didn't want to be alive anymore when all this happened. Shame like I had never experienced before — the kind of shame that you forget how to breathe. You don't know where to go. You can't go outside and get like, a taco. But I was also in this deep desire to hold on."

Shia has been facing allegations of abuse from ex-girlfriend FKA Twigs, a singer who accused him of "relentless abuse" and sexual battery during their relationship.

"I don't think people would ever think that it would happen to me. But I think that's the thing. It can happen to anybody," FKA Twigs (whose legal name is Tahliah Debrett Barnett) said in a previous interview with the New York Times. She said it was "the worst thing I've ever been through in the whole of my life."

A court date has been set for April 17, 2023, and Shia's legal team maintains his innocence. They told People that Shia "denies, generally and specifically, each and every allegation contained in [Barnett]'s Complaint, denies that [Barnett] has sustained any injury or loss by reason of any act or omission on the part of [LaBeouf], and denies that [Barnett] is entitled to any relief or damages whatsoever."

Shia said in his interview with Bishop Barron that he was surprised to find faith during his research for the film Padre Pio. He was focused on the role but he ended up finding God.

“I know now that God was using my ego to draw me to Him," he said. "Drawing me away from worldly desires. It was all happening simultaneously. But there would have been no impetus for me to get in my car, drive up [to the monastery] if I didn’t think, ‘Oh, I’m gonna save my career.'” 

“It was seeing other people who have sinned beyond anything I could ever conceptualize also being found in Christ that made me feel like, ‘Oh, that gives me hope,'” Shia said. “I started hearing experiences of other depraved people who had found their way in this, and it made me feel like I had permission.”

Shia spoke about how Latin Mass "affects me deeply." When Bishop Barron asked him why, he replied, "Because it feels like they're not selling me a car and when I go to some mass with a guitar... it feels like they're trying to sell me on an idea."

"It feels like I'm being let in on something very special," he continued. "It activates something in me where it feels like I found something."