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  • Shia LaBeouf Says Co-Star With Down Syndrome Saved Him From Alcohol

    Shia LaBeouf Says Co-Star With Down Syndrome Saved Him From Alcohol

    His “The Peanut Butter Falcon” co-star Zack Gottswagen made LaBeouf promise to never do “that kind of stuff again.”

    Actor Shia LaBeouf told interviewers on the UK’s Channel 4 that he was saved by tough love doled out by his The Peanut Butter Falcon co-star Zack Gottsagen. At the time, LaBeouf was dealing with the backlash from his drunken arrest, during which he launched into a racist rant against his arresting officers.

    LaBeouf and Gottsagen star in the movie, with Gottsagen playing a man with Down syndrome who has dreams of becoming a professional wrestler. Notably, Gottsagen lives with the condition in real life. The unfiltered and unflinching bluntness from Gottsagen helped LaBeouf get his head on straight.

    A Straight Shooter

    “Zack can’t not shoot straight,” he admitted to Esquire in an interview. “And bless him for it, ’cause in that moment, I needed a straight shooter who I couldn’t argue with.”

    As the story goes, LaBeouf was skulking around on the set of The Peanut Butter Falcon the day after his embarrassing arrest, unable to muster the will to make eye contact with any of the cast on the boat where they were filming. Gottsagen, sitting next to LaBeouf, put his hand on his shoulder.

    “He nursed me back, on a boat, during a scene where we’re talking about, like, the painful past,” LaBeouf said in the interview.

    The Ultimatum

    Gottsagen also gave an ultimatum to LaBeouf.

    “I was sad and cried,” Gottsagen said to Channel 4. “But I’m still gonna take a chance for myself to give Shia one chance to prove to himself… never, never, never do this kind of stuff again.”

    LaBeouf had been arrested for becoming disorderly after being refused a cigarette by a stranger. TMZ obtained video of the actor screaming at his arresting officers, including some racially charged comments.

    “So you wanna arrest, what, white people who give a f— who ask for cigarettes? I came up trying to be nice, you stupid b—,” LaBeouf said on camera, among other things. “I got more millionaire lawyers than you know what to do with, you stupid b—.”

    But thanks to his co-star, LaBeouf eventually got his head on straight.

    When asked by Channel 4 presenter Cathy Newman if he felt the film saved him, in a way, the actor was definitive in his answer.

    “No, it’s not too dramatic to say,” LaBeouf admitted.

    Gottsagen’s mother, Shelly, says that conversation is the reason LaBeouf hasn’t had a drink since.

    The film The Peanut Butter Falcon is out in theaters now.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Demi Moore: Sobriety Lets Me Experience Life

    Demi Moore: Sobriety Lets Me Experience Life

    The “Ghost” actress details her journey to sobriety and her mother’s battle with addiction in her new memoir. 

    Actress Demi Moore is able to fully experience life now that she’s sober, according to the cover story of the October issue of Harper’s Bazaar.

    In the interview, she revealed that she has struggled with substance abuse for a long time, first getting sober in her 20s, but found herself struggling again in her 40s. In 2012, a woman called EMS on behalf of Moore, who seemed to be having a seizure after smoking an unknown substance.

    “She smoked… something… It’s not marijuana but it’s similar to incense,” the panicked woman said in the 911 call.

    Now, in her 50s, she is back on the sober train.

    “In retrospect, what I realized is that when I opened the door [again], it was just giving my power away,” Moore explained. “I guess I would think of it like this: It was really important to me to have natural childbirth because I didn’t want to miss a moment. And with that I experienced pain,” she added. “So part of being sober is, I don’t want to miss a moment of life, of that texture, even if that means being in—some pain.”

    Childhood Trauma

    Moore is set to release her memoir, Inside Out, soon. In it, she writes about her traumatizing experiences growing up with her mother who struggled with her own substance abuse problems. In the book, Moore recounted a time in which she was forced into a position where she had to revive her own mother after an overdose.

    “The next thing I remember is using my fingers, the small fingers of a child, to dig the pills my mother had tried to swallow out of her mouth while my father held it open and told me what to do,” Moore wrote. “Something very deep inside me shifted then, and it never shifted back. My childhood was over.”

    Breaking The Cycle

    Now sober, she credits her three children, Rumer, Scout and Tallulah, and their father, ex-husband Bruce Willis, for helping her get her head on straight.

    “My daughters offered me an opportunity to start to change the generational pattern. To be able to break the cycles,” she revealed.

    Last year, she spoke at a Women’s Recovery House event where she was being honored.

    “Early in my career, I was spiraling down a path of real self-destruction, and no matter what successes I had, I just never felt good enough. I had absolutely no value for myself,” she said.

    “And this self-destructive path, it very quickly brought me to a real crisis point… Two people, who I barely knew, stepped up… and they presented me with an opportunity—that was more like an ultimatum—unless I was dead, that I better show up.”

    View the original article at thefix.com