Shia LaBeouf, just hours before his arrest Thursday after disrupting a Broadway performance of Cabaret , chased down and fought with a homeless man as he tried to steal food from the man’s McDonald’s bag, witnesses said.
The celebrity-stalking site TMZ obtained photos of the confrontation , in which LaBeouf demanded the McDonald’s bag and repeatedly told the man, “It’s me, Shia,” witnesses explained.
The incident happened in the afternoon leading up to Shia LeBeouf’s arrest on charges related to his bizarre disruption of the Cabaret performance, starring British actor Alan Cumming, at the Studio 54 Theater on Manhattan’s 54th St., between Broadway and Eighth Avenue.
During the play, Cumming walks down the aisle in character. But during Thursday night’s show, LeBeouf, who occupied an aisle seat, reportedly slapped Cumming’s buttocks as the actor passed by.
“Alan was in character and was very professional,” a witness told The New York Post . “He knew not to engage, and he carried on walking.”
LeBeouf also heckled other actors, smoked a cigarette inside the theater, and created other loud disturbances.
“Shia was being lewd, grunting and yelling in a lascivious way, ‘Oh yeaaaaaaaaaaah,’” a different witness told the Post . “It was really odd and creepy.”
Cumming later commented on the situation in a tweet. “Manager last night at intermission: This is your places call and Shia LaBeouf has left the building in handcuffs,” Cumming wrote.
But the 27-year-old Transformers star’s bizarre behavior at the Broadway performance was not his first disturbing incident of the day. While theatrical performances have been disrupted by unruly or intoxicated theatergoers before, the confrontation between Shia LeBeouf and the homeless man in Manhattan’s Times Square earlier that day may be unprecedented.
“He really wanted whatever was in that bag,” said a witness to that strange altercation. “He had so much focus… If there were french fries in the bag, maybe he really wanted to eat them. He was dodging people and yelling, ‘Yo, come on!’ He was on a mission. It was so bizarre.”
Witnesses reported that LeBeouf seemed “whacked out” and appeared to behave as if he was personally acquainted with the homeless man. Another witness said that the object of LeBeouf’s desire was not a McDonald’s bag, but a baseball hat held by the man.
While in police custody later that night at a 54th Street precinct house near the theater, LeBeouf reportedly directed numerous profanities at police officers, and used the same derogatory, anti-gay term that recently landed fellow actor Jonah Hill in hot water .
But while Hill was profusely apologetic, Shia LaBeouf remained silent as he exited a Midtown Manhattan courthouse Friday morning, pursued by reporters and photographers.