The Weird Events Leading Up to Shia LaBeouf's Public Retirement

For the past month, Shia LaBeouf has been embroiled in a very public plagiarism scandal. This week, the controversy came to a head when LaBeouf announced via Twitter that he is "retiring from all public life." The whole scandal has been bizarre, messy, and hard to follow, so we're breaking it down. Here's what happened:

Dec. 16: LaBeouf Is Publicly Accused of Plagiarism

Earlier that week, Howard Cantour, a short film directed by LaBeouf, debuted on the internet. Soon after, news broke that Daniel Clowes was accusing LaBeouf of lifting dialogue and characters from his graphic novel, Justin M. Damiano.

Dec 16: LaBeouf Issues an Apology Via Twitter

Dec. 18: People Realize His Apologies Were Plagiarized

This was lifted from Tiger Woods's apology for his 2009 cheating scandal:

This quote came from former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, who was apologizing for the US's part in the Vietnam War:

Dec. 29: He Keeps Plagiarizing Apologies

He took this from Jade Goody, a Big Brother UK contestant, who was apologizing for racist remarks:

Jan. 1: LaBeouf Skywrites an Apology to Daniel Clowes

He tweeted a picture of the skywritten apology, which was done in LA, even though Clowes lives near San Francisco.

Jan. 6: He Plagiarizes Taylor Swift . . . Then Apologizes

In a tweet with a link to an article about his plagiarism scandal, LaBeouf lifted words from a speech Taylor Swift gave in 2012 inspiring kids to read more.

Then he apologized, kind of.

Taylor Swift has, unsurprisingly, not commented.

Jan. 8: LaBeouf Shares Some Artwork

The actor tweeted out a graphic novel about his next short film, Daniel Boring, which I think we can all agree is a really creative title.

Jan. 8, Later: LaBeouf Receives a Cease-and-Desist Letter From Daniel Clowes

He tweeted it out, naturally.

Jan. 9: His Even Stevens costar comments on her former TV brother:

Christy Carlson Romano, who played Ren on the Disney Channel original series Even Stevens, commented on her TV brother's bizarre behavior: "He's always just honored his artistic instincts, even when he was 12 years old to about 15 or 16 as we worked together," she said. "So this is him experimenting with his artistic instincts. This is not just some breakdown, like some other child actors. This isn't some emotional neediness. This is something that he's actively doing."

Jan. 10: LaBeouf Decides He's Done With Public Life

In Conclusion: