Shia LaBeouf And The Kingdom Of The Royally Screwed

The signs, as they say, were there. A rough-and-tumble kid from the hard streets of Echo Parque, Shia LaBeouf traded in tubesteak and greasepaint as a child, raised by hot-dog-vending clown parents. (A profession, if the lessons of Momzo are to teach us anything, which can frequently lead to movie star delinquency.) It would not be long before his magnetic screen presence and deft improvisational skills would catch the eye of a Hollywood in a desperate search for its next everyman superstar. But while he seemed up to the tasks of blockbuster movie-making—whether sexing a hyperdeveloped co-star on the hood of an anthropomorphic Camaro, or getting thwacked in the balls by jungle vegetation—it was off-screen that LaBeouf began developing a reputation for recalcitrance. Shia, they whispered, was capital-t trouble.