If there was ever a city to fall off the wagon in, it’s New Orleans. If there was ever a time, it’s Mardi Gras. While the carnival culminates tomorrow, Fat Tuesday, the Transformers actor Shia LaBeouf — who has professed to be sober, and who has blamed his abusive behavior towards ex-girlfriend FKA Twigs on his past alcoholism — has been on an extended-weekend bar crawl in the city’s Uptown neighborhood since Thursday, say employees of various drinking establishments around the city.
The mercurial actor ran into a door block early Sunday night at the open-24/7 bar Ms Mae’s when LaBeouf — married to Frankenstein indie queen Mia Goth — showed up at the boisterous dive sans shirt or cash. He wasn’t alone in what Ms Mae’s doorman Robert Skuse described as an “inebriated” state, and was “somewhat belligerent.” LaBeouf came in right around the time the Bacchus super-krewe parade rolled up St. Charles Avenue, amid thousands of revelers, most of them deeply in their go-cups, catching “throws” and watching floats and marching bands go by.
In the middle of the mayhem, “he did the ‘Do you know who I am?’ bit,” Skuse said. Many did recognize him, asking him to pose for group Instagrams, which he complied to. “He was so nice on Thursday,” said a Ms Mae’s bartender, who served him that night. On Sunday, he put his shirt back on when told he had to.
Ms Mae’s, on the corner of Napoleon and Magazine, is an old-school dive bar that welcomes its share of visiting bold-faced names with a respectful shrug. Its staff, on Sunday, asked the actor to leave after he attempted to “be a celebrity bartender.”
“He asked me three times if he could use his credit card,” said bartender Kyle Catarouch, who was working that early evening. The bar has at least 50 “Cash Only” signs. “Why don’t you go back and dig holes?” she said — a reference to the actor’s breakout movie Holes, from 2003.
Having heard other anecdotes about his bar forays, said another bartender, requesting anonymity, who waited on him last Thursday: “He is terrorizing the city!”
On Sunday, LaBeouf is said to have left begrudgingly but without incident, and was alone in his travels, according to witnesses.
Witnesses reported seeing him on Thursday evening at the cigar bar/live jazz club Dos Jefes. “He was louder than everyone and was giving acting instructions to a girl at the bar,” said a patron who wished to go unnamed.
According to other bar flies at 45 Tchoup, a locale along the parade routes, he also made a cameo there with no repercussions.
“Yeah he was here, and he was totally chill,” confirmed 45 Tchoup co-owner Deb Shatz. “He came twice: the weekend before last and then Friday. He dipped his card but left without signing, so we added a 20 percent gratuity.”
From conversations with those who mixed with him he said he was staying at a luxury AirBNB in the Uptown sector, where the mega-parades roll. Further Shia sightings occurred at Brothers III Lounge, a legendary dive on Magazine Street, according to staff at the bar.
Representatives for LaBeouf have not responded to requests for comment.
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