Alan Cumming Talks Shia LaBeouf's Cabaret Incident: We've All Been Messed Up—Watch Now!

"Not everyone has to deal with that on such a worldwide scale," said Broadway star, "and I thought he made a very good recovery."

By Rebecca Macatee Oct 21, 2014 5:35 PMTags

What happens on Broadway...gets cleared up on late-night TV!

Last week on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Shia LaBeouf gave his account of what happened in a Cabaret performance June 26 that ultimately led to his arrest. On Monday's Conan, though, the show's leading man Alan Cumming gave his surprisingly empathetic reaction to LaBeouf's explanation of the events.

"I thought it was a very good thing," said the 49-year-old stage star, referring to LaBeouf's long-winded account of his admittedly drunken behavior at the show. "But I thought ought when he did that thing last week [Jimmy Kimmel Live], we've all done things where we've been out of it and messed up."

"Not everyone has to deal with that on such a worldwide scale," added Cumming, "and I thought he made a very good recovery."

The Scottish actor backed up LaBeouf's claim that too much whiskey led to his disruptive behavior on Broadway. "I think he was just really messed up...He was wasted from the second he walked into this thing," Cumming recalled of the 28-year-old Fury star.

Even before the show began, "everyone was freaking out," said Cumming, "because, you know, there was somebody who seemed to be a crazy person, shouting and stuff."

Conan O'Brien asked jokingly if Cumming "could sense there was a LaBeouf quality to the air," to which he replied laughingly, "Oh, very much so!"

This resulted in, as LaBeouf described it, Cumming getting "a slap on the ass." The Cabaret star described this moment as when "he [Labeouf] whacked me!"

Cumming is willing to let this one slide, though, he joked, because Labeouf "did say that the reason he did it was because I was the sexiest man he's ever seen, so..."