Just when we thought Shia LaBeouf could no longer shock us, he’s only gone and done it again.
The 30-year-old American Honey actor is known for his crazy (some say questionable) life choices, but Shia LaBeouf finally let the tatt out of the bag by revealing the truth behind some of his strange ink.
Drumroll… LaBeouf has not one, but two tattoos of Missy Elliot on his thighs.
He explained the ink to Ellen Degeneres, confirming that they are as real as you or me:
It’s landmarks. It’s love, it’s people I love.
Shia was on The Ellen Show talking about his latest social media collaborative art project, #TakeMeAnywhere, in which he and two friends post their co-ordinates to Twitter and wait for the public to pick them up and, literally, take them anyway.
Luckily, Shia was still in rambler-mode, and donned a pair of cargo shorts for the interview.
While that was entertaining for us, it meant his own pursuits were outshone by his ink, which featured the likes of Notorious B.I.G, 2Pac, Prince and Dr. Dre.
The actor got the tattoos – including 10 others – while filming American Honey. He told Variety he succumbed to ‘peer pressure’ in the tattoo parlour.
Shia is no stranger to headline-grabbing art projects. He live-streamed himself watching his own films in a strange existential piece, and more recently married his girlfriend of four years, Mia Goth at a wedding chapel in Vegas.
You guessed it: That got live-streamed too, if by accident.
From one artist who’s pushing boundaries and paying homage to some of the greatest musicians of our time, this ink is peak fandom and, actually, it’s glorious.
A former emo kid who talks too much about 8Chan meme culture, the Kardashian Klan, and how her smartphone is probably killing her. Francesca is a Cardiff University Journalism Masters grad who has done words for BBC, ELLE, The Debrief, DAZED, an art magazine you’ve never heard of and a feminist zine which never went to print.