LaBeouf was born in Los Angeles, California, as the only child of Shayna (nee Saide) and Jeffrey Craig LaBeouf. His mother is a dancer and ballerina turned visual artist and clothing jewelry designer. His father is a Vietnam War veteran who had numerous jobs. LaBeouf's mother is Jewish, and his father, who is of Cajun descent, is Christian.

In early 2014, LaBeouf began collaborating with British artist and author of The Metamodernist Manifesto, Luke Turner, and Finnish artist Nastja Sade Ronkko, embarking on a series of actions described by Dazed as "a multi-platform meditation on celebrity and vulnerability". Since then, LaBeouf, Ronkko & Turner have engaged in numerous high-profile performance art projects, including #IAMSORRY (2014), #ALLMYMOVIES (2015), #TOUCHMYSOUL (2015), #TAKEMEANYWHERE (2016), and HEWILLNOTDIVIDE.US (2017-ongoing).  On February 9, 2014, the artists caused controversy at the Berlin Film Festival when LaBeouf arrived at the red carpet wearing a brown paper bag over his head with the words "I AM NOT FAMOUS ANYMORE" written on it. In a conversation conducted as part of the trio's #INTERVIEW piece in November 2014, LaBeouf said that he was "heartbroken" and "genuinely remorseful and full of shame and guilt" at the start of their subsequent #IAMSORRY performance, in which he occupied a Los Angeles gallery for six days wearing the paper bag and silently crying in front of visitors, but that "in the end I felt cared for however it came--it was beautiful, it blew me away." He revealed, however, that one woman had proceeded to sexually assault him during the February performance, while Ronkko and Turner later clarified that they had prevented the assault by intervening as soon as they were aware of the incident starting to occur.  In 2015, LaBeouf appeared in #INTRODUCTIONS, a half-hour video made by LaBeouf, Ronkko & Turner in collaboration with Central Saint Martins Fine Art students, comprising a series of short monologues performed by LaBeouf in front of a green screen. One segment in the form of an exaggerated motivational speech, dubbed "Just Do It" after the Nike slogan, became an Internet meme after going viral within days of being released, spawning numerous remixes and parodies, and becoming the most searched for GIF of 2015 according to Google.

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