FKA Twigs filed a new lawsuit against Shia LaBeouf on March 25, five years after her original sexual battery case and eight months after settling it. The issue: the settlement included a nondisclosure agreement, and in December, LaBeouf's lawyers filed a secret arbitration complaint claiming Twigs violated it by telling an interviewer she "wouldn't feel safe" with that chapter behind her. Twigs is now suing to have the NDA declared illegal under California's STAND Act, a post-#MeToo law that bans NDAs covering sexual abuse. Meanwhile, LaBeouf was arrested twice during Mardi Gras for punching bartenders and shouting homophobic slurs.

1. He's Using the NDA to Silence Her (FKA Twigs, #MeToo Advocates, Women's Rights Groups)

She can't even say she doesn't feel safe without triggering a legal threat. That's the point.

The NDA was designed to shut her up, and he's enforcing it. Twigs settled the abuse case in July 2025 after years of litigation. The settlement was private, dismissed with prejudice. But it included an NDA — and when Twigs gave an interview months later saying she "wouldn't feel safe," LaBeouf's team filed a secret arbitration demanding damages for breach of contract. Billboard described it as a "campaign of intimidation."

California law says this NDA is illegal. The STAND Act, passed in 2019 in the wake of #MeToo, specifically bans nondisclosure provisions in settlements involving sexual assault, harassment, and discrimination. Twigs' lawyer Mathew Rosengart is arguing the NDA is void on its face. Even after LaBeouf dropped the arbitration this month — likely because his Mardi Gras arrests made the optics untenable — Twigs is pressing the lawsuit to get the NDA formally struck down. She doesn't just want to talk. She wants to make sure no one can stop her.

She agreed to the terms. She signed the NDA. Changing your mind isn't a legal argument.

Twigs settled the case voluntarily. The original lawsuit was dismissed with prejudice — meaning she can't refile. Both sides issued statements wishing each other well. The NDA was part of the deal she accepted. Whatever she thinks of the terms now, she had lawyers, she had time, and she chose settlement over trial. Rewriting the deal after the fact because the public mood shifted isn't how contract law works.

The STAND Act isn't a blank check. The law bans NDAs that prevent disclosure to law enforcement or in future legal proceedings. It doesn't necessarily void every confidentiality clause in every settlement. LaBeouf's team will argue the NDA falls within the law's exceptions, or that Twigs' public statements went beyond what the STAND Act was designed to protect. The legal question is narrower than the headlines suggest.

If Twigs wins, every sexual abuse settlement with a silencing clause is vulnerable. That's the point.

The STAND Act has barely been tested in court. It passed in 2019, but most settlements with illegal NDAs never get challenged because the victims don't have the resources or the profile to fight back. Twigs does. She has Mathew Rosengart — one of Hollywood's most powerful litigators — and a case that's already in the public eye. If she wins, it establishes that NDAs in sexual abuse settlements are unenforceable in California, period. Every silencing clause signed since 2019 becomes a potential target.

LaBeouf is the worst possible defendant for the NDA's defenders — which is good for her case. He was arrested twice during Mardi Gras in February for punching bartenders and shouting homophobic slurs. A judge ordered substance abuse treatment and $100,000 bond. He has a documented history of volatile behavior stretching back more than a decade. The man trying to enforce a silencing clause against his abuse accuser is the same man who can't stop getting arrested for violence in public. That matters in court, and it matters even more in the court of public opinion.

Where This Lands

FKA Twigs could have stayed quiet after the settlement and moved on. Instead she's back in court to torch the NDA, even after LaBeouf dropped his own claim against her. The STAND Act exists precisely because survivors were being silenced by legal agreements their abusers used as weapons. Where this lands depends on whether the court agrees that saying "I don't feel safe" counts as the kind of speech California's law was written to protect — or whether the NDA holds up as a valid contract two consenting adults signed.

Sources