Shia LaBeouf
Shia LaBeouf has been accused of pedophilia after featuring in Sia's music video Elastic Heart Reuters

American actor/director Shia LaBeouf is at the center of another controversy and this time the 28-year-old is being accused of pedophilia.

The Transformers star appeared semi-naked in Sia's latest music video for her single Elastic Heart, and is seen wrestling with 12-year-old Maddie Ziegler, who is dressed in a nude-coloured leotard.

As the video went viral, Twitter users took to the micro blogging website to slam the clip.

Just watched the Sia video of Maddie with Shia a grown man looks gross like they r groping each other ! Sickening!

— Rebecca McLaughlin (@rrebeccajomcla1) January 7, 2015

#ElasticHeart: is it art, or something more dangerous? http://t.co/8zoC5Yxfa5

— Her Campus STU (CA) (@HerCampusSTUCA) January 12, 2015

I can't place it, but Sia's new video makes me uneasy. Probably because the song is older than a year.
Or the pedo vibes.#ElasticHeart

— Arnold 🐋 (@DisArnold) January 8, 2015

The 39-year-old Australian singer took to her Twitter account to respond to pedophilia claims.

I anticipated some 'pedophelia!!!' Cries for this video. All I can say is Maddie and Shia are two of the only actors I felt could play

— sia (@Sia) January 8, 2015

I apologize to those who feel triggered by #ElasticHeart My intention was to create some emotional content, not to upset anybody. 🙏

— sia (@Sia) January 8, 2015

Meanwhile, in an interview with Elle magazine, Ziegler opened up about the video's storyline.

"It was actually completely different from what everyone has been asking. It was the same idea—I'm still [a version of] Sia—but I also was being inspired by a wolf. That was why I was hissing and stuff in the video. We'd been stuck in the cage for a long time, she said. And I'm trying to hurt him. I'm, like, the mean one, the bad one; I'm the one who's strong. We were fighting—in the beginning. I was more the one going at him.

"By the middle, he was going after me. But at the end, he kind of just, after the part where I get out and I'm teasing him and he's trying to reach and grab me, he kind of gives up. So then I go back in the cage and I actually start to—I do the handstand on his back. I feel like we sort of become friends. At the end, I take his hand and try to walk out of the cage with him, but he's too big to get out," she said.

Ziegler revealed that LaBeouf is very serious when it comes to work.

"He was very serious about it. He treated it as if he was a dancer. Also, we had a lot of fun and a lot of laughs. But, yeah, you could say that he definitely took it seriously," she said.

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