Kanye West and Shia LeBeouf are two of America's favorite crazy people.
It turns out they were once good friends and LeBeouf has had a great deal of influence on the rather slovenly way 'Ye has been dressing for the last couple of years.
LeBeouf explained how West literally took his style in an interview with Esquire.
Over the past couple of years, LaBeouf’s style, a mix of military, athleisure, and (mostly) normcore—what he calls “blue collar”—has become a fixation among men’s-wear enthusiasts. Kanye West, for one, is a fan: In a “No More Parties in L. A.” outtake, he raps, “I wish I dressed as fresh as Shia LaBeouf.” When Kanye went to LaBeouf’s house to discuss possible art collaborations, he asked if he could have some of his clothes for a pop-up shop. “Around the same time, I took my mother to his concert,” LaBeouf tells me. “She is, of course, obsessed with Kanye West. When I brought her backstage, he was a fucking sweetheart to her. And it just felt fair. So I’m like, ‘Go for it, my guy. Take everything you want.’ And he did. He took all my fucking clothes.
Unfortunately, Shia and Ye's relationship went south about when Wet famously melted down in November of 2016. (Shia was having his own issues around then.)
Me and him haven’t really been in contact since he blew up onstage and, you know, shit on me," he told Esquire. (In November 2016, during a fifteen-minute midconcert meltdown in Sacramento, Kanye said, “Shia LaBeouf: Kid Cudi feels a way. Call him.” LaBeouf directed Cudi in a music video and a short film in 2011. What West meant is open to interpretation.) I ask if he’s tried to reach out. “Of course, bro. I fucking love Kanye West. He’s going through a lot. And I don’t know where he’s at or what he’s doing.” Last May, style bloggers worked themselves into a tizzy when Kanye was photographed wearing the exact same cap that LaBeouf had worn in public countless times before. “The dude has a lot of my shit,” he says. Yeezy even took his Indiana Jones hat.
Kanye isn't the only rapper to turn to Shia for fashion tips. Ye's protege Travis Scott has called LeBeouf his "style icon."