The Guest Who Stayed Too Long: Shia LaBeouf and the French Quarter Incident
Darlings, Mardi Gras season in New Orleans is always a spectacle — feathered masks, rivers of champagne, and apparently, Shia LaBeouf throwing punches in the French Quarter. The city that gave us jazz, beignets, and the most exquisitely chaotic carnival on earth has now gifted us yet another chapter in Hollywood’s most turbulent redemption arc — one that appears to have derailed spectacularly somewhere along Royal Street.
In the early hours of Tuesday morning, at a positively unglamorous 12:45 a.m., New Orleans Police were summoned to Royal Street — that gorgeous stretch of the French Quarter where antique shops and boutique hotels drip with Southern Gothic charm — following reports of an assault. The subject in question? None other than Shia LaBeouf, 39, the once-celebrated face of blockbuster franchises and indie darling auteur projects alike.
According to the New Orleans Police Department, LaBeouf had been growing “increasingly aggressive” inside an unidentified establishment, forcing staff to escort him from the premises. One would hope that might have been the end of the evening’s drama. It was not. The actor returned — more agitated than before — and proceeded to strike a victim multiple times with closed fists, before delivering a punch squarely to another person’s nose. Two counts of simple battery, a misdemeanor charge, followed after LaBeouf received hospital treatment for undisclosed injuries.
What makes this particular Mardi Gras cameo all the more fascinatingly complicated, dear readers, is the trail of sightings preceding it. Sources place LaBeouf at 45 Tchoup — a charming haunt along the parade routes — on not one but two prior occasions, where co-owner Deb Shatz described him as “totally chill.” He even dipped his card without signing, prompting staff to add a very reasonable 20 percent gratuity. A man of mystery and, apparently, questionable tipping etiquette.
Further whispers from the scene suggest he was ensconced in a luxury Airbnb in the Uptown sector — naturally, where the mega-parades roll in all their sequined glory — and was spotted at Brothers III Lounge, the legendary dive bar on Magazine Street beloved by locals with exquisite taste for the unpretentious.
This is not, of course, LaBeouf’s first collision with controversy. In 2020, musician FKA twigs filed a lawsuit accusing him of sexual battery and assault. LaBeouf publicly acknowledged his alcoholism and aggression at the time, expressing shame and remorse.
New Orleans deserved better from its Mardi Gras guest, and frankly, so did everyone on Royal Street that night.
