A former California lawmaker is backing FKA twigs in her lawsuit against Shia LaBeouf, who’s trying to bar her from broadly discussing issues of sexual violence and sharing any information about acts relating to her own experiences of alleged sexual abuse by the actor.

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Last year, months after she settled her lawsuit against LaBeouf, the singer-songwriter got an arbitration demand from the actor’s legal team. He claimed breach of contract for what he considered a violation of the deal’s nondisclosure agreement over an interview in which she said, “I wouldn’t feel safe” with that chapter of her life behind her.

The arbitration was later dismissed, but FKA twigs (whose legal name is Tahliah Barnett) brought a lawsuit against LaBeouf seeking a court order that would block him from enforcing portions of the NDA. She argued that it violates the STAND Act, which prohibits NDAs in sexual assault, discrimination and sexual harassment cases that don’t rise to felony prosecutions.

After Barnett received the arbitration demand in December, Mathew Rosengart, her lawyer, argued that nondisclosure provisions in the settlement violate the statute. LaBeouf’s legal team responded that it doesn’t apply because Barnett only brought a claim for sexual battery and not sexual assault in her 2020 lawsuit.

Now, former State Sen. Connie Leyva, who authored the legislation, is clarifying the record to ensure that the distinction isn’t used to enforce illegal NDAs. 

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“Contrary to Mr. LaBeouf’s apparent position, the California Legislature did not intend and did not carve out an exception designed to protect sexual batterers (as opposed to sexual assaulters) or conclude that sexual batterers (but not sexual assaulters) should be free to silence their victims with secret NDAs,” she wrote in a court declaration filed on Wednesday.

The distinction LaBeouf cites, she added, defies common sense.

In a statement, Rosengart stressed that the NDA is void. He added, “We filed the lawsuit in response to Mr. LaBeouf’s attempt to bully and intimidate FKA twigs through a frivolous arbitration he filed against her last December, seeking to extract money from her. Astonishingly, he claimed he is immune from California’s STAND Act because, in his view, it applies only to sexual assaulters but not sexual batterers. But now we have gone to the source: the author of the legislation.”

In court filings, LaBeouf has argued that FKA twigs improperly filed her lawsuit in court rather than arbitration to “disparage and harm” him. He pleaded guilty in June to charges relating to an altercation during an extended Mardi Gras bar crawl that erupted into violence.

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