Frazer Harrison/Getty Images(LOS ANGELES) — Disgraced actor Shia LaBeouf has reportedly ended his working relationship with talent agency CAA, reports Variety.
The Honey Boy actor, who stands accused by ex-girlfriend FKA Twigs of physical and emotional abuse, is taking a hiatus from acting and has since checked himself into rehab to treat his mental health.
Sources to Variety say CAA did not fire LaBeouf, but rather it was his decision to end their partnership because he will not be working as an actor. Sources say the 34-year-old intends to spend as much time as needed to work on his recovery and, in order to do so, chose to step away from acting so that he could focus solely on recovery.
Sources claim he has been seeking treatment longer than five weeks and currently resides at an inpatient facility. It is unknown when he will be released.
The actor’s representatives, along with CAA, have not responded for requests for comment at this time.
As previously reported, LaBeouf is embroiled in a lawsuit filed by ex-girlfriend, FKA Twigs, who claimed the actor “hurts women.” “
“He uses them. He abuses them, both physically and mentally. He is dangerous,” the lawsuit states.
FKA, born Tahliah Barnett, claimed the actor “tormented” her, brandished a firearm while driving, and “knowingly” gave her an STD, among other accusations of similarly violent and controlling behavior during their relationship.
Other women have come forward with their own accusations against LaBeouf, including Sia, who worked with him on her 2015 music video “Elastic Heart,” and his former girlfriend Karolyn Pho.
(JACKSON TOWNSHIP, Ohio) — An Ohio police officer is being praised for showing restraint and providing a textbook example of his de-escalation training to peacefully end a standoff with an alleged armed robber who was threatening to kill himself, telling the suspect, “You’re too young, bud.”
Police body camera footage showed the Jackson Township officer, whose name was not immediately released, talking the suspect into putting down his gun and surrendering.
The episode came in sharp contrast to numerous high-profile incidents nationwide when law enforcement officers have come under criticism, and several criminally charged, for quickly resorting to the use of deadly force.
“The officer did do a fantastic job, there’s no question about that. I’m very proud of the way our guys handled that situation,” Jackson Township Police Chief Mark Brink told ABC News on Tuesday.
The incident unfolded just after 3 p.m. on Saturday when officers responded to a report of a robbery at a Dollar General store in Jackson Township, which is about 5 miles northwest of Canton, according to a statement from police.
Police said a woman who witnessed the robbery followed the suspect as he drove away from the store and reported his whereabouts to police.
At one point, the suspect, identified as 20-year-old Rashawn Harper of Tennessee, noticed the witness following him and allegedly opened fire on her car, striking it on the side, police said.
“He’s shooting at me! He’s got a gun!” the 51-year-old witness was heard telling a dispatcher in a 911 call obtained by ABC News affiliate WEWS in Cleveland.
Officers found the suspect’s car abandoned in front of a home, police said. An occupant of the residence told police the suspect ran through their backyard toward a golf course, according to the statement.
When officers caught up to the suspect, he was “sitting on a bench with a gun to his head,” the police statement reads.
Brink said all of his officers are trained in crisis intervention, and specifically taught how to deal with distraught or mentally ill suspects.
“It was a tough situation. The young man had just shot at a car,” said Brink, adding that during the investigation, police learned the suspect had also approached a man and allegedly threatened him with a handgun.
Instead of resorting to deadly use of force, the officer de-escalated the situation by calmly negotiating with the suspect to put down the gun, according to body-camera footage obtained by WEWS.
“We can help you, dude. We’re not going to hurt you. I promise you we are not going to hurt you. Put it down,” said an officer, who joined the Jackson Township Police Department as a part-time member in 2016 and became a full-time officer in September 2017.
During the standoff, Harper told the officer that he had stopped taking his medication for a mental disorder. The officer promised Harper that he would get him a therapist if he put down the gun.
“You toss that gun out of there. I put mine away, and I’ll come talk to you. I promise you. We can help you. It’s not the way,” the officer told Harper, according to the footage.
As they continued to speak, Harper told the officer his age, the video shows.
“Come on, bud, you have to talk to me. Dude, you’re 20. You’re still so young. Let’s go, dude, we don’t want to do this. Just put it (the gun) down, bud. We don’t want to do it. You don’t want to do it. You’re 20,” the officer said, according to the video.
Brink said the officer negotiated with Harper for three to five minutes before he put the gun down. The officer continued to console Harper even as he was handcuffing him.
“What’s up, dude? Look at me. What’s going on?” the officer asked.
Harper responded, “I made terrible decisions,” according to the video.
When asked why he allegedly committed the robbery, Harper said, “I didn’t want to do what I did.”
Harper remained in custody on Tuesday in the Stark County Jail on charges of aggravated robbery and felony assault. He was also charged with carrying a concealed weapon, aggravated menacing, obstructing official business and possessing a stolen gun.
Warner Music NashvilleBrett Eldredge is looking at the bright side of life in his new single, “Good Day.”
Featured on his latest album Sunday Drive, “Good Day” was originally released in 2020 ahead of the album. It serves as the second single off the project, impacting country radio on March 1.
“Good Day” finds Brett in positive spirits even when the sun is hiding behind the clouds as he sings “I got a feeling it’s gonna be a good day” over a cheerful piano melody.
“In our society, everybody feels like we need to put on that perfect outer look, and I got so tired of that. I didn’t want to do it anymore,” Brett previously shared with Good Morning Americafollowing the track’s initial release in 2020. “This song says ‘have the self-awareness of yourself of being like, ‘I’m gonna make this a good day no matter what is thrown at me and I’m going to give it my best foot forward.'”
Sunday Drive debuted in the top five on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart.
HBO Max(LOS ANGELES) — (SPOILER ALERT) Batman fans rejoice: the Joker’s face tattoos are gone in the Justice League: The Snyder Cut.
Ahead of the movie’s March 18 debut in theaters and HBO Max, director Zack Snyder gave Vanity Fair a peek of his vision for Jared Leto’s Joker in the film.
Leto’s Joker appeared in David Ayers’ Suicide Squad, sporting a shiny grills in his mouth and tattoos across his forehead, a look Honest Trailers mocked as “mananorexic Juggalo.” But for Snyder, the look is much more subtle — and scary.
The black-and-white photos show Leto in a filthy lab coat, his face white but his mouth and eyes smeared with makeup.
While the look is quite different than in Suicide Squad, there’s no shade from Snyder, who praised Leto and Ayers in a tweet picturing the Clown Prince of Crime out of focus, holding up the Joker card to camera. “Amazing character you created,” Snyder posted to the pair. “Honored to have our worlds collide.”
Snyder, who stepped down from Justice League because of a family tragedy, after Warner Bros. tapped Joss Whedon to re-cut the film and re-shoot some scenes, tells the magazine his only regret was not having Joker in his version. When he got the opportunity for reshoots, he jumped at the chance to use Leto in a scene that takes place as part of Bruce Wayne’s apocalyptic vision brought upon by the world-conquering villain, Darkseid.
“It’s Joker analyzing Batman about who he is and what he is,” Snyder says. “[T]he Jared Leto Joker and the Ben Affleck Batman, they never really got together. [That] seemed uncool to me…”
As for where the Joker tats went, Snyder says, “I don’t know if he’s wearing makeup…It’s hard to say exactly.”
Netflix(NEW YORK) — (NOTE LANGUAGE) As part of Variety‘s ongoing “Directors on Directors” series, NYU Film alums and longtime friends Spike Lee and Oliver Stone chatted about their shared history over Spike’s multi-award nominated Da 5 Bloods.
Stone is not only a Vietnam veteran, but the Oscar winning director of the iconic Vietnam War films Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July, and Heaven and Earth. Years ago, he was going to make the The Last Tour, a script on which Da 5 Bloods was based — about a group of Vietnam vets who return there to find a cache of hidden gold — but admits he couldn’t crack it.
“I never was able to solve it in a way that was satisfactory to me,” Stone tells Lee. “You solved it. You solved it…because you went entirely Black. The movie is a love poem to Black Vietnam soldiers,” Stone opined. “[It] blew me away.”
Lee explains he was nervous to show the movie to his “brother” Stone, considering his real-life experiences in Vietnam when Lee was only 10.
“I’m a pipsqueak. I don’t know sh**.” and you were there,” Lee said. “Then you just gave me a great big, big, big love hug over the phone [afterward].”
Spike also mentions working with Chadwick Boseman on what became his penultimate film before he lost his battle with colon cancer. “I didn’t know he was terminally ill,” Lee says. “One of the first days he worked…he had to do 100 yard sprints and it’s 100 degrees. If I had known, no way I’m gonna ask him to run.”
Lee adds, “Chadwick did not want to be treated differently…He did not want to cheat us or cheat his fellow actors, that is why he did not tell anybody. And I think it’s heroic.”
Frazer Harrison/Getty Images(LOS ANGELES) — Disgraced actor Shia LaBeouf has reportedly ended his working relationship with talent agency CAA, reports Variety. 
