Poor old Shia LaBeouf  - from promising, seriously talented actor to plagiarising, homeless person harassing, booze-addled freak in little more than year or two. How did it all go so wrong?

One could point first of all to child star syndrome (see also: Lohan, Lindsay and Beiber, Justin), an unfortunate affliction that has claimed many with very few success stories bar the charming Ms. Drew Barrymore, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Neil Patrick Harris. We love those three though, and have loved watching them increase in talent a

Poor old Shia LaBeouf  - from promising, seriously talented actor to plagiarising, homeless person harassing, booze-addled freak in little more than year or two. How did it all go so wrong?

One could point first of all to child star syndrome (see also: Lohan, Lindsay and Beiber, Justin), an unfortunate affliction that has claimed many with very few success stories bar the charming Ms. Drew Barrymore, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Neil Patrick Harris. We love those three though, and have loved watching them increase in talent and sheer awesomeness over the years. Shia not so much, and the signs of general douchery have been there for a while now.

In fact, after some research (i.e. TMZ.com, don’t judge me) I have discovered that as far back as 2011 the Shia LaBeouf method acting school of thought has been leaving people worried, with the one-time family-friendly Disney star's erratic behaviour on movie sets including, but not limited to, taking acid, getting blind drunk on moonshine and stripping naked. LaBeouf gleefully revealed that he had an on-screen scrap with fellow ‘Lawless’ star Tom Hardy IRL, and things have been accelerating at some pace since.

In fact, June and July have been a real shit show for LaBeouf, wouldn’t you agree? Unless you have been living under a rock - or actually living a normal, busy life with little time to hit the tabloids - you’ll have witnessed the star being physically ejected from a performance of ‘Cabaret’ on Broadway (Liza Minelli reportedly sent him a copy of her film version on DVD the next day, I love that), being arrested and consequently spitting on the arresting officers. This was after a morning spent chasing around a homeless man trying to get the poor man’s hat, and terrifying the bejesus out of him in the process.

I have a few theories about the past year and Shia’s general demeanour, since clearly he is starting to lose it a little bit. Okay a lot. Maybe he is sadly going through what Amanda Bynes went through, just a little bit later on in life. If so then a trip to see the professionals is what is most definitely needed, and a decent prescription to sort out his issues. His upbringing could play a role in this whole scenario as well; as although LaBeouf has described his parents as "hippies", he has also said that his father was "tough as nails and a different breed of man". He has also said that his parents were "pretty weird people, but they loved me and I loved them,” and that during his childhood he accompanied his father to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous and similar. He was subjected to verbal and mental abuse by this same “tough” father, who once pointed a gun at his son during a Vietnam War flashback and was consequently put in drug rehabilitation for heroin addiction. They are still mates to this day, so hopefully Papa LaBeouf is on the case if his son is indeed having issues.

But anyway - onto my second theory, which has a much happier ending. Remember back when Joaquin Phoenix decided to get a little weird but in reality it was for some mockumentary that entertained as much as it freaked us out? Yeah, that is what I hope this is. As far back as January, LaBeouf said his plagiarism was really a hoax—a work of performance art that he would be chronicling with the hashtag #stopcreating. Fingers crossed that this was the official start of filming, and that Shia isn’t really crazy, he is just putting together a little documentary on how to act crazy without being crazy.

In fact, the aforementioned mockumentary, ‘I’m Still Here’ starring Joaquin Phoenix and directed by good buddy Casey Affleck, shows next Wednesday, July 23 on Rialto Channel at 8:30pm, and I for one will be locked and loaded for a viewing. See Phoenix announce to Extra's Jerry Penacoli that he was retiring from the acting game to start a career in hip-hop, his infamous meltdown in front of a national audience with David Letterman's verbal axe handy to chop him down - and much more. Fast forward to 2014 and he stuns us all in the beautiful ‘Her’, madness just a thing of the past.  In conclusion, we’re rooting for you Shia. Do us proud.