FKA Twigs was granted a new trial date for her sexual battery and assault lawsuit against ex-boyfriend Shia LaBeouf on Friday after her lawyer appeared in a Los Angeles courtroom and said mediation in the long-running dispute still appeared “hopeless.”
“It was hopelessly hopeless? Okay,” Los Angeles County Judge Virginia Kenny said before setting Sept. 29, 2025, as the new start date for an expected 10-day trial in the case that was first filed back in 2020. The judge said depositions for Twigs, born Tahliah Barnett, and LaBeouf had to be completed by mid-January.
“I’m sure it’s painful for both of them. I don’t want to minimize that. But they have to put this part of the case behind them,” she said of the long-delayed depositions. Before ending the hearing, the judge made one more pitch to the parties, encouraging them to settle. “I hope they can find some way to resolve this without airing of a lot of private facts in a public place,” she said.
In her lawsuit, Barnett alleges that LaBeouf terrorized and assaulted her, both verbally and physically, during a tumultuous relationship that started soon after they made the movie Honey Boy together in 2018. Barnett, 36, claims LaBeouf, 38, tried to choke her multiple times, including once during an alleged attack at a gas station in February 2019. LaBeouf “threw Tahliah against the car and attempted to strangle her violently while screaming in her face,” the lawsuit says. She alleges that shortly before the gas station incident, LaBeouf threw her to the ground outside a hotel and drove “maniacally” in a car while threatening to crash their vehicle unless Barnett “professed her eternal love for him.”
LaBeouf initially struck an apologetic tone in an email to the New York Times when Barnett first stepped forward with her claims. “I have no excuses for my alcoholism or aggression, only rationalizations. I have been abusive to myself and everyone around me for years. I have a history of hurting the people closest to me. I’m ashamed of that history and am sorry to those I hurt,” he wrote. The Transformers actor later denied Barnett’s allegations in a February 2021 answer to her complaint, stating through his lawyers that he denied causing Barnett “any injury or loss” and that she is not “entitled to any relief or damages whatsoever.”
“We’re excited to go to trial and to have FKA Twigs tell her story and once again be heard,” Barnett’s lawyer Bryan Freedman tells Rolling Stone while leaving the courtroom Friday. Asked if there was any possibility the sides might still reach a private settlement, he replies, “It would be great if [LaBeouf’s] actions in resolving this case would comport with his on-the-record public statement about his own actions.”
Reps for LaBeouf did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A trial in the case was previously set for 2023, then pushed to 2024 ahead of the new 2025 date.
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