Shia LaBeouf says that converting to Catholicism quite literally saved his life. Sitting down with Bishop Robert Barron on his series Conversations at the Crossroads, the actor explained that he found himself on the verge of suicide after facing a series of public scandals.

“I had a gun on the table. I was outta here. I didn’t want to be alive anymore when all this happened,” he shared.

LaBeouf came under heavy public scrutiny in 2020 after a string of incidents, including being accused of sexual battery by his ex-girlfriend FKA Twigs and court-ordered inpatient rehab.

“At this point I’m nuclear. Nobody wants to talk to me, including my mother,” he said of that time. “The manager’s not calling. The agent’s not calling. I’m not connected to the business anymore.” LaBeouf and his agency, CAA, parted ways shortly after the accusations surfaced. The resulting shame, LaBeouf says, was nearly too much for him to handle.

“Shame like I had never experienced before—the kind of shame that you forget how to breathe. You don’t know where to go. You can’t go outside and get like, a taco,” he said, expressing that the crushing guilt brought him to the brink of suicide.

“The reach-out had happened. I was already there, I had nowhere to go. This was the last stop on the train. There was nowhere else to go—in every sense.”

LaBeouf Found Faith While Looking for Career-Saving Move

     Via IMDb

The actor was preparing for the titular role in Padre Pio, an upcoming film about the Catholic saint from Bad Lieutenant director Abel Ferrara, when he discovered the religion. Though he may have gone in with very different intentions, LaBeouf says it’s all God’s timing.

“I know now that God was using my ego to draw me to Him. Drawing me away from worldly desires. It was all happening simultaneously. But there was no impetus for me to get in my car, drive up [to the monastery] if I didn’t think ‘Oh, I’m gonna save my career.’”

As for the accusations against him, the actor said that he’s had a complete perspective switch.

“I wanted to go on Twitter and write all these things. I wanted to justify this and explain all this,” he said, only referring to FKA Twigs as “the woman that accused me of all this.”

“Now I actually see that…the woman saved my life. She is, for me, a saint in my life. She saved my life. That perspective switch feels miraculous.”

LaBeouf has previously denied all allegations against him, including causing “any injury or loss.”