Shia LaBeouf Plagiarized His Apology to Alec Baldwin from Esquire's 'How to Be a Man' [UPDATE]

Shia LaBeouf was all set for his first stroll along the Great White Way before abruptly departing Daniel Sullivan's upcoming production of Lyle Kessler's Orphans due to "creative differences."

In an ostensible effort to explain his sudden exit, LaBeouf used his Twitter account to "leak" a series of email exchanges between himself his former play-mates — Sullivan and co-star Alec Baldwin among them.

In a touching soliloquy entitled "apology," LaBeouf writes, in part: "A man can tell you he was wrong. hat he did wrong. That he planned to. He can tell you when he is lost. He can apologize, even if sometimes it's just to put an end to the bickering."

Powerful, heartfelt words. Except they weren't his.

The entire refrain was lifted verbatim from Tom Chiarella's "What Is a Man?," which appeared in Esquire's 2009 "How to Be a Man" issue.

It soon became apparent that LaBeouf's "confessional" tweets were less about being humble and more about humblebragging.

As evinced in such as responses as "I don't have an unkind word to say about you" from Baldwin, and "you're one hell of a great actor" from Sullivan.

Even LaBeouf's other co-star, Tom Sturridge, got in on the action, telling LaBeouf he "lifted the play to a place higher than maybe it ever deserved to be."

LaBeouf clearly knows how to quote properly, as he did with words from David Mamet and Mark Twain, so it's unclear why he didn't bother to extended Chiarella the same respect.

Probably because pretending to have written something smart makes a person appear smarter to those who are unfamiliar with the original text.

Of course, the downside is, when that person is ultimately exposed, they end up appearing dumber than they otherwise would have.

UPDATE: Tom Chiarella responds to Shia LaBouef's plagiarism of his Esquire piece: "A man who's been plagiarized must be graceful and grateful that your words have power. A man who plagiarized just owes an acknowledgment and a one-sentence apology. But I don't expect it."

[H/T: Entertainment Weekly, @ditzkoff, photo via AP]