Shia LaBeouf talks growing up poor, losing the love of his life

Shia LaBeouf covers the July issue of Parade magazine and opens up about growing up poor, his parents' divorce, and losing the love of his life.

On his breakup with China Brezner: "Why did the love of my life and I break up? Man, I have no idea. Maybe it was career pressure. Maybe I chose work. Every man has those feelings of escape and survival. I know you shouldn't be that way. I'm trying to understand it and find the answers. I don't have them now. Like other 23-year-old guys, I'm normal and I'm fallible."

On growing up in a family of starving artists: "My dad and my mom were both artists who never found an audience for their artwork. And so I lived in poverty. Now that I'm not poor, I know that is what it was. Like Hemingway said, you can't write anything if you've never been shot at or been gorged by a bull, you know? So I look back at that stuff and I'm grateful. It's like scars. You become proud of them."

On why his parents went their separate ways: "Finance drove my family apart because they were co-owners in a fashion company that fell apart. And my mother blamed my dad for it, you know, blamed him for wrecking it all. My mom and my dad, and vice-versa -- it's back and forth. It may not be the sole reason for the split, but it is the superficial reason. It's the surface reason that you can point at and go, 'That's the reason.'"