Megan Fox is responding to people on social media after some of her old interviews resurfaced online.
A clip of an old interview from 2009 recently went viral on Twitter. In it, Megan was interviewed by Jimmy Kimmel, during which she claimed that she – a then-15-year-old girl in 10th grade – was told to wear a bikini and dance under a waterfall in 2003’s Bad Boys 2, where she appeared as an extra.
The actress, whose star was fast rising at the time as the female lead in the Transformers franchise, was famously fired a year after the interview – after just two films.
She also made headlines when she told Wonderland Magazine that Transformers director Michael Bay, would tell her to “be hot,” or “just be sexy,” when she asked for directions for her scenes in the movies.
Then, there were reports that the audition process for her role in Transformers movies involved wearing a bikini and washing Michael’s car.
Since her departure from the Transformers franchise, Megan’s career didn’t quite take off the way many thought it would have. However, the resurfaced interview appears to have pushed fans to demand respect for Megan and her acting chops and call out Hollywood for not giving her the proper chance to reach her potential.
Megan has since posted an open letter to fans on Instagram to clarify some of her past interviews and thank her fans:
“I know that a discussion has erupted online surrounding some of my experiences in Hollywood and the subsequent mishandling of this information by the media and society in general.
While I greatly appreciate the outpouring of support, I do feel I need to clarify some of the details as they have been lost in the retelling of the events and cast a sinister shadow that doesn’t really, in my opinion, belong. At least not where it’s currently being projected…
I was around 15 or 16 years old when I was an extra in Bad Boys II. There are multiple interviews where I shared the anecdote of being chosen for the scene and the conversations that took place surrounding it. It’s important to note however that when I auditioned for Transformers I was 19 or 20.
I did ‘work’ (me pretending to know how to hold a wrench) on one of Michael’s Ferrari’s during one of the audition scenes. It was at the Platinum Dunes studio parking lot, there were several other crew members and employees present and I was at no point undressed or anything similar.
So as far as this particular audition story I was not underaged at the time and I was not made to ‘wash’ or work on someone’s cars in a way that was extraneous from the material in the actual script.
I hope that whatever opinions are formed around these episodes will at least be seeded in the facts of the events.
Please hear me when I thank you for your support. But these specific instances were inconsequential in a long and arduous journey along which I have endured some genuinely harrowing experiences in a ruthlessly misogynistic industry.
There are many names that deserve to be going viral in cancel culture right now, but they are safely stored in the fragmented recesses of my heart.
But when it comes to my direct experiences with Michael, and Steven [Spielberg] for that matter, I was never assaulted or preyed upon in what I felt was a sexual manner.
I’m thankful to all of you who are brave enough to speak out and I’m grateful to all of you who are taking it upon yourselves to support, uplift, and bring comfort to those who have been harmed by a violent and toxic societal paradigm.”
Just last year, Megan opened up about going through a “genuine psychological breakdown” while filming Jennifer’s Body – her first project after Transformers. She also raised concerns about not being taken seriously and being objectified.
“I didn’t want to be seen, I didn’t want to have to take a photo, do a magazine, walk a carpet, I didn’t want to be seen in public at all because the fear, and the belief, and the absolute certainty that I was going to be mocked, or spat at, or someone was going to yell at me, or people would stone me or savage me for just being out… so I went through a very dark moment after that,” she told Entertainment Tonight.
