It would appear that hatred for Shia LaBeouf has extended beyond the actor himself to people that vaguely resemble him.
Unfortunately for Mario Licato, he learned this the hard way when an attacker jumped him on the subway at Delancey Street on the Lower East Side on Saturday.
The LaBeouf lamenter landed a punch to Licato’s face, knocking him down the steps and leaving him with a broken pair of glasses and black eye.
When the Bushwick art director regained consciousness, aided by a concerned couple, all he remembered was the guy justifying the attack, shouting that it was due to his looking too much like the controversial Transformers star.
He told Gothamist: “I was so confused because I got up and I was like, am I crazy or did I hear him say, ‘This is because you look exactly like f**king Shia LaBeouf?’ And the couple were like, ‘Nope. That’s exactly what he said as he was running away from you.’”
The attacker – who apparently didn’t know that LaBeouf (above) isn’t even famous anymore – ran straight onto a train after committing the hateful attack. He was described as being in his mid-twenties, 6ft to 6ft3ins tall and muscular.
While appreciating that LaBeouf has behaved oddly in recent years with stunts like wearing a paper bag over his head to a premiere or recording himself watching all of his movies with a packed movie theatre, Licato wondered exactly what it was that stirred so much hatred against the star.
He added: “What did Shia LaBeouf do to him that he punched somebody that looks like him? He must have did something so mean. Did he steal his girlfriend? Did he just see his last performance art piece?”
Featured cover image: Huffington Post/Gothamist