SHIA LABEOUF IS the latest actor to admit to taking performance enhancing drugs. Speaking at the Premiere for Salvable, a boxing crime drama film that released in May 2025, LaBeouf candidly explained how he felt a certain pressure to bulk up to portray a physically imposing fighter.
‘It was like, well, how how am I going to fit in this world? I’m so tiny, so small,’ LaBeouf said. ‘And if you meet any of these fighters, these travellers, even guys in my position who are just kind of bookies, they’re big boys. They’re bigger.’
Prior to landing the role for the film, the 39-year-old weighed around 75 kilograms, and in a short space of time he had added another 25kg to his frame to shoot up to just under 100kg. ‘They told me I was about to die. I had a cardiologist tell me, “You’ve got to stop”,’ he admitted. ‘I was on all kinds of weird steroids, called SARMs [selective androgen receptor modulators]. You know what that is? Some weird new steroid they gave me so that I got big,’
While not technically anabolic steroids, SARMs do mimic some of the same muscle-building effects – alongside similar risks, including: testosterone suppression, reduced sperm count, hair loss, acne, mood changes, liver toxicity, increased risk of heart attack or stroke, and potential long-term damage to hormonal and cardiovascular health.
Not all of LaBeouf’s weight gain was lean muscle, with the actor admitting that he had to ‘eat a lot’ in order to put on mass. He’s now back down to his more natural weight of 75kg, though, having stopped eating so much and gotten off SARMs. ‘I was 220 [pounds] (100 kg), and now I’m 165 [pounds] (75 kg),’ he added. ‘I stopped doing SARMs and then stopped eating.’
LaBeouf isn’t the first actor in recent weeks to acknowledge receiving an extra helping hand from drugs. When speaking about body transformations in Hollywood, Frank Grillo recently claimed that ‘everybody’ takes prescribed steroids for their body transformations, while also highlighting his own personal TRT use.
‘None of those are natural bodies,’ Grillo said. ‘Those guys don’t walk around looking one way like six months out of the year and then all of a sudden they have 35lbs (15 kg) of muscle on them. We all know what they’re doing. They might not want to say it but they all do it. Everybody.’
Why MH rates Shia Labeouf’s steroid confession
For years, Hollywood actors have faced accusations of using steroids to achieve certain physiques. Those claims are often ignored or denied, with rebuttals insisting that training harder, smarter, or more often is enough to build bodies that most are unlikely to attain – and sustain – without drugs.
LaBeouf’s confession makes clear the extremes actors go to in order to look a certain way. His honesty shouldn’t encourage others to follow suit; instead, it should underline that similar transformations aren’t always achievable without drugs, and that steroid use in Hollywood is far more common than most stars admit.
He also revealed he nearly died while taking SARMs – a warning stark enough to deter anyone considering the ‘extra help’.
This article originally appeared on Men’s Health UK.
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