Shia LaBeouf Writes Apology in the Sky

By Talia Lavin January 3, 2014

(JTA) – Shia LaBeouf, the 27-year-old “Transformers” star, has been the center of a plagiarism controversy.

LaBeouf’s recently released short film, entitled “HowardContour.com,” appears to be a near-exact replica of veteran cartoonist Daniel Clowes’ 2008 comic “Justin M. Damiano.” Clowes was apparently blindsided by the plagiarism, telling Buzzfeed that he had no idea of the film’s existence until it was released online in December 2013.

LaBeouf has been tweeting bizarre apologies for weeks — many of which turned out to be plagiarized themselves, from sources as diverse as Robert McNamara and Mark Zuckerberg.

But on Thursday, LaBeouf topped himself — literally: he took to the skies, tweeting an image of a sky-written message. Because clearly writing “I AM SORRY DANIEL CLOWES” in the sky above Los Angeles was a logical response to this situation.

CLOUD: – vapor floating in the atmosphere – remote servers used to SHARE DATA – to make LESS CLEAR or TRANSPARENT pic.twitter.com/jw9JlEi791

ampmdash; Shia LaBeouf (@thecampaignbook) January 1, 2014

There’s only one thing LaBeouf forgot in his flawless plan. Clowes lives in the Bay Area, hundreds of miles from Los Angeles’ skies.

Talia Lavin is a fact checker for the New Yorker and a Forward columnist writing about Jews in American politics.

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