For years, Megan Fox told stories about Michael Bay. Bay has always been known as a pig who treats all women as objects, whether it’s in real life or as a filmmaker. Fox’s stories about Bay were next level though – the one story which ALWAYS sticks in my mind is the one about her audition for Transformers, where Megan said Bay told her to come to his house and wash his Ferrari in a bikini while he filmed her. Yeah. I remember that story even eleven years after she told it, that’s how bad it is. In 2009, Megan went through a phase where she just told horrifying story after horrifying story about Bay, and it looks like people are still rediscovering those stories. This clip went viral over the weekend:
clip from 2009 where megan fox tells a story about michael bay sexualising her as a 15 y/o
the crowd laughs, and kimmel makes gross jokes
teen girls being preyed on by older men has never been taken seriously and still isn’t pic.twitter.com/t1rF80UTj1
— liz w 🧸 (@reservoird0gs) June 21, 2020
This was from that 2009 period of Megan’s IDGAF interviews, and she was eventually fired from the Transformers franchise and blackballed within the industry for several years after this promotional tour (Steven Spielberg was said to personally order Bay to fire Fox). Post-Me Too, post-Time’s Up, there has been a conversation about whether Megan Fox’s situation deserves another look, and whether she was trying to tell her own Me Too stories publicly, only to see her career destroyed as powerful men lined up against her. I believe that’s a conversation worth having, and Megan has said as much too, that she feels like she was trying to force those conversations without having backup, or having the language necessary to really talk about what happened to her. Anyway, after that clip went viral this weekend, Megan issued a statement:
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 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.
Okay, so now she’s saying she didn’t go to Bay’s house and wash his Ferrari in a bikini while he filmed her? She’s saying the audition was actually at the studio and that other people were around while she fiddled with a wrench? Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure the audition process was still stupid and sexist, but the devil is in the details and it feels like Megan did misrepresent some details back in 2009 for the sake of “telling a good story on a chat show.” Which is also fine – every actor has some exaggerated story they tell for chat shows. But it feels like Megan feels like she can’t admit she misrepresented some things AND she’s also a victim of sexism within the industry. Both can be true and both things are true in Megan’s case.
Photos courtesy of Getty.
She needs to get work. Trashing Spielberg isn’t going to get her work. He knows everybody and has too much power, and so does Bay. She isn’t like Reese Witherspoon, writing and producing work. She needs to be hired for projects, so she has to stay quiet to get hired.
She was young when she came out about how it is. Gwyneth Paltrow didn’t talk about what happened to her with Weinstein. The only women who talked about it were blacklisted or ejected from the industry.
I believe Megan, and her old face was so very beautiful.
I miss her old face. She was stunning!
This. She came out and talked back then and was practically shut out until she came back and basically begged Michael’s forgiveness. It isn’t fair and it isn’t right but she learned she had to keep quiet to have a career. I can’t hate on her for protecting herself after she was trashed for so long.
But THIS is WHY there is such outrage. Women SHOULD be able to report sexism, when things are wrong, when we FEEL uncomfortable with what is said or the circumstances. We shouldn’t have to feel like we need to ‘stay quiet’ to keep our jobs or not be ‘blacklisted.’ Nothing will ever change for us unless we keep complaining and back each other up. Too many turn their heads to save their own asses. So tired of it…
+1. Pajiba an excellent piece the other day on how the misogyny and victim-blaming directed at Megan Fox made it harder for her to open up about her abuse. They and Lainey from Lainey gossip both recently have owned up to how they’ve been complicit over the years in how women/girls are treated and prevented from speaking out against misogyny. They don’t try to pretend that their problematic behavior was just about or only effected one woman either. “They have new targets to destroy…The internet never forgets, but hopefully, the right lessons can be learned so that we don’t see this cycle continue indefinitely with more young, vulnerable women forced onto the chopping block.”
Listennlearn – I agree. I probably moan a lot on my blog about things and I feel whiney but I also know that if I don’t speak, things don’t change. People don’t change. It’s so important to call people out. We need to because men will always walk all over us. Until things change we should call out every male and every bad thing that is done because right now we are at a moment where things can change because women are speaking up more and if we ride that perhaps there will be actual change. But if we do like Megan and backtrack that puts us right back where we were. And we (women) are worth so much more than that.
Exactly, they should feel safe to talk about it. Revisiting some of Shia’s comments at the time, it appears that Meghan was very young and became uncomfortable with Bay’s “lascivious” style that appealed to 16 year old boys and the way he would bark those orders about that style, like “arch your back!”, at her. Which is entirely fair, and that style is gross.
As for the car-washing… the original story was described by Guardian journalist Jason Solomon’s thusly:
“How did she get the part which has made her what lads’ mags call the “hottest girl on the planet”. She told me she went to director Michael Bay’s house to audition and he made her wash his Ferrari while he filmed her. She said she didn’t know what had happened to that footage. When I put it to Bay himself, he looked suitably abashed. “Er, I don’t know where it is either.””
The journalist also commented that he was surprised by her intelligence considering the way she was portrayed in the movies.
I think it’s possible she exaggerated the story at the time; but if that’s the case, wouldn’t Bay have corrected the story at the time? I think she’s trying to cover for him now. That audition sounds disgusting either way.
And as for Bad Boys II, I just went and rewatched that scene and it is just as ridiculous and gross as ever. I had loved the first movie (although word is Tea Leoni despised Bay), and was so disappointed with the second. That opening scene was so stupid. I was young and used to go clubbing at the time and I remember thinking that was so far removed from reality it was ridiculous. On my rewatch, it is even grosser. He literally sends his camera between the thighs of a mini-skirted woman. and now I know he also sexualised a 15 year old Meghan as a part of that awful scene. It’s so gross. And bears no resemblance whatsoever to actual clubs or to the party drug culture it was trying to display.
In summary, Bay deserves no excuses for his gross behaviour but I understand why she feels she needs to provide them. Poor Meghan.
My understanding too.
She had to apologize to Bay, she had a backlash.
Yeah whos going to feed her kids? Not BAG
Steven Speilberg really was mad about the Hitler comments and it was said that is what put her career on ice for a long while.
I do think she became a bit of mythomaniac for a number of years in her interviews – like the GQ one where she concocted a story about dating a stripper. That being said, she definitely was screwed over in horrendous ways. I mean, if you really re-examine her life at that point, she was the least scandalous star of that early-aughts generation. She had no reputation with drinking or drugs – she never hung out with Paris or Lindsay and did the TMZ thing. I think when she spoke out, this was her rebellion in a way, but the power players would’ve preferred her just getting trashed and going to rehab and giving her five million chances like they did with other stars of her generation. Speaking up and out was a far worse crime to them.
Hollywood has never been forgiving to Women who go against the grain. I hope she is able to work more, but who knows if she will.
@Christina, Reese Witherspoon has never been a writer, but she is a producer, and a good one at that. Little Fires Everywhere was a great show. But you are right, Megan needs to stay quiet in order to get hired again.
I remember a few years ago reading an article about her and she admitted she made up and embellished stories to get attention and pander to her (mostly young male) fan base. She told some infamous story in a men’s magazine at the height of her fame about dating a female tattoo artist that garnered a lot of attention and she admitted it was totally false. I kind of give her a pass because she was so young and got so famous so fast but the outright lying and embellishing bugs me. Still she seems like a good parent and decent person and I hope she is in a good place.
I thought it was another producer who worked with Bay who told the Ferrari story?
She really should have left her face alone. She was beautiful
She’s still beautiful. It’s tragic that she felt like (perhaps was encouraged or told) she had to change her face.
When I was young, I so wanted to be beautiful, or even pretty. (I managed to pass for “cute” some of the time.) Now, I feel so fortunate that I wasn’t. I’d have been eaten up and spat out (even more than I even was just for being a young woman). And I’m not even part of an industry that feeds on that dynamic.
She looks plastic and a good 10 years older than she actually is.
I like Megan. I don’t doubt that she’s experienced a lot of sexism and objectification in what should’ve been professional settings. I also agree with those saying she’s likely pressured into not calling out certain people in the industry, because look what happened to her last time she tried that.
I only watched Jennifer’s Body a year ago and was stunned 1) At what a good movie it was/message it had, and 2) At learning the story of how the movie bombed because it was grossly misrepresented in marketing due to Megan’s “hotness.” This movie wasn’t a teen comedy with a hot chick, but that’s how it was marketed by people who refused to look deeper into what the film was about. In actuality, it was a story about Megan’s character being objectified and violated and how she gets revenge on the men who treated her that way, as well as examining the complexities of female friendships. That situation reminds me a lot of how Megan is treated in general — as just a hot chick with no substance.
When I saw the trailer I thought it was another trashy teen vampire movie, especially as it was released around the twilight era, but it was so much better than that. I agree the way it was promoted didn’t do it any justice.
I have no doubt that Megan has suffered sexual harassment within the film industry, and let’s face it, Michael Bay is clearly piggish. She could have made up the car washing story but she could also have been telling the truth all along and is backtracking now so as to not ruin her career. It’s not right that she, like so many women, can’t speak out without being punished, and I’m sure she has plenty of stories to tell about many other men in the industry that she is afraid to reveal now because of how she was blacklisted for so long.
All I know is she is better hope her 2011 comments about why she removed her Marilyn Monroe tattoo don’t resurface and go viral in an age where cancel culture is at its peak:
“I’m removing it. It [Marilyn] is a negative character, because she suffered from personality disorders and was bipolar. I don’t want to attract this kind of negative energy in my life.”
A person having a mental health illness does not make them a “negative character”.
I never understood all the hate towards her, beautiful women get the worst of some people right? She was great in Jennifer’s body, even the first time I saw it many years ago, and now it seems more people are starting to appreciate that movie.
She’s great with comedic roles (she was so funny in This is 40, also great scenes with Leslie Mann), she should do more comedy (like the Thor guy, sure they are gorgeous but they stand out with comedy).
Paz – I always loved Megan too. She isn’t the best actress but Jennifer’s Body is one of the greats. I always enjoyed her work and she is stunning. It’s a shame her career was derailed because of Spielberg and Michael Bay. I feel like the Weinstein actresses, she needs to be given a second chance. Powerful men ruined her career and then whatever with Brian Austin Green, I feel like she’s kind of been victimized her whole life by older men. Maybe that’s why I have a soft spot for her.
I would say that sexually threatening women reveal the worst in people, not necessarily beautiful women — women labeled “classically beautiful” or “angelically beautiful” definitely are given more passes. Insecure men and women who suffer from internalized misogyny brought out their claws for Megan Fox.
I agree that her acting is underrated. However, she gets a lot of praise for her comedic efforts, but I think she is at her best playing vulnerable characters, which she displayed well in Jennifer’s Body and the otherwise terrible Passion Play.
I feel like women like Meghan fox who are beautiful but also very sexy always get treated like crap as oppose to the ‘wholesome’ types. They always play the token ‘bad girls’ who subsequently get punished for their sexuality while the token ‘nice girl’ comes out on top. Jennifer’s Body is literally that to a tea, with Amanda Seyfried being the token victorious nice girl. It sad that there are people who will have no sympathy for whenever she endured at the hands of Bay, because subconscious they think she deserves to be punished for her looks.
I don’t doubt it happened to her but maybe not the way she told it, I don’t doubt she exagerated the story at the time as she was starting out and it gave her the attention she wanted. She was naive at that time and the men had the power and her career didn’t recover. This was before MeToo and unfairly, her career suffered. She is now a single mother, now only 1 income coming in and with FEW JOBS lined up and she had pretty much disapeared from Hollywood’s radar. And now she is almost 35 – old by Hollywood standards for a female – so she likely needs to work (California is an expensive lifestyle with no Beverly 90210 residuals coming in now) and probably why she is backtracking now. That is the way I see it.
I also think she may have lost work as she massacred her face at one time and it was hard to look at her Looks better lately, but it’s shame she messed up her original face, she was gorgeous before.
Does anyone else remember the story about MIchael Bay having Rosie Huntington-Whiteley audition to replace Megan and leaving her in the desert in underwear and heels and driving off without her?
Oh man, really? I heard that he had Rosie audition in see-through lingerie, but not the story you mentioned.
Yes, it was when she was a Victoria’s Secret Angel and he was filming a big ad for them. He did that and delightedly described how she stomped back full of attitude and he filmed her and then cast her in Transformers. What a pig. That is not how you get people to act, you don’t need to treat people like crap to get a performance out of them. And clearly it was a terrible gauge of acting ability anyway because Rosie was awful in that film.
Hear me out, is it possible that she was correct when she told her story the first time but over the years she’s been told to tone it down so much that she is remembering it wrong? If enough people force you into submission your story can change.
I know that I have creepy stories from my life that as years passed I downplay because it doesn’t seem like that big of a deal anymore and I’m so far removed that perhaps I too remember it wrong? I don’t know but I know with time, you do tend to rationalize a lot of things.
I remember the original story. It always stuck out to me because it was so creepy. I will always associate Michael Bay with that story. And after Meghan was blackballed. She barely got more work in recent years and it was on a Michael Bay movie (Teenage Mutant). I just find it odd that she is backtracking now, after she basically had to beg Michael for a job. Perhaps she doesn’t want to screw its up again so she’s changing her story? Which is still pretty gross.
But also Michael Bay isn’t the Hollywood fixture he once was. I haven’t seen any of his movies in a long time. Did Bad Boys 3 even for well?
She’s lying here because she’s about to go through an extremely messy, expensive divorce with the 90210 creep who groomed her and emotionally abused her for years. She doesn’t want to lose work—she needs all the work she can get, she’s got three kids and a shitty ex-husband to consider—and the industry already made it very clear to Megan that it could end her as quickly as it built her up. No one came to her aid back then, either, and I’m sure that shit really scarred her. I am totally team Megan here and I wouldn’t hammer her on inconsistencies in this story now. It’s real clear why she wouldn’t want to piss off Michael Bay or Spielberg. I’d say, cut her some slack here.
Is her ex a creep? I’ve never paid attention to him so don’t really know what he’s done.
THIS 👆
Cynthia, bingo
It’s sad that she has to walk back the story in order to try and save her career. Around 2009 she was such a hot commodity too, and then she didn’t really appear in anything memorable. Although I did like the film where she was a vampire. She got blacklisted for speaking out, it’s such a damn shame and people wonder how these rich men can get away with that behaviour for years. I think he absolutely did some very inappropriate sh*t to her, and I hope he gets his karma.