Megan Fox is speaking out to clarify some resurfaced interviews and thank her fans. The 34-year-old actress took to Instagram on Monday, penning a message surrounding some renewed interest in stories she’s shared about some of her uncomfortable interactions in Hollywood.
Fox made headlines over a decade ago after telling Wonderland magazine that Transformers director, Michael Bay, would tell her to “be hot,” or “just be sexy,” when she asked for direction while filming two movies in the film franchise. She also claimed during a 2009 Jimmy Kimmel Live interview that she was asked to don a bikini and heels and dance under a waterfall while filming 2003’s Bad Boys II with Bay. At the time of filming, she was around 15 or 16 years old and in the 10th grade.
“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,” Fox posted to Instagram on Monday in response to the resurfaced interviews, which went viral on Twitter earlier this week. “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.”
She went on to clarify that while she was 15 or 16 when she was an extra in Bad Boys II, when she auditioned for Transformers she was 19 or 20.
Fox also reacted to reports that she was asked to wash Bay’s Ferrari while being filmed as her audition for one of the Transformers movies.
“I did ‘work’ (me pretending to know how to hold a wrench) on one of Michael’s [Ferraris] during one of the audition scenes,” she confirmed. “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.”
This claim isn’t what The Guardian reported in July 2009.
“She told me she went to director Michael Bay’s house to audition and he made her wash his Ferrari while he filmed her,” The Guardian‘s Jason Solomons reported of Fox at the time. “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.'”
In her post, Fox added that she was not underage at the time of the audition or “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,” she continued. “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.”
Fox went on to defend Bay and seemingly Steven Spielberg, who served as an executive producer for Transformers.
“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,” she wrote.
May we all continue waking up❤️
A post shared by Megan Fox (@meganfox) on Jun 22, 2020 at 6:15pm PDT
Bay posted Fox’s statement on his own Instagram, adding in a photo that he said was from the actress’ Transformers audition.
“Megan Fox wrote this today. This is a still from her Audition taping 13 years ago. No. She is not washing a car nor in a bikini like the press have falsely said for many years,” the 55-year-old director wrote. “And I personally think Megan is fantastic. I’m proud to have worked with her, and still am planning on working with her.”
Megan Fox wrote this today. This is a still from her Audition taping 13 years ago. No. She is not washing a car nor in a bikini like the press have falsely said for many years. And I personally think Megan is fantastic. I’m proud to have worked with her, and still am planning on working with her.
A post shared by Michael Bay (@michaelbay) on Jun 22, 2020 at 8:21pm PDT
In addition to clarifying her interactions with Bay, Fox further thanked fans in her post, writing, “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.”
In December 2018, Fox explained in a New York Times interview why she had chosen not to come forward with her #MeToo stories.
“One could assume that I probably have quite a few stories, and I do — I didn’t speak out for many reasons,” the mother of three said at the time. “I just didn’t think based on how I’d been received by people, and by feminists, that I would be a sympathetic victim. And, I thought if ever there were a time where the world would agree that it’s appropriate to victim-shame someone, it would be when I come forward with my story.”
Fox also opened up to 360aproko during a 2019 interview with her Jennifer’s Body director, Diablo Cody, about her state of mind in 2009.
“I think I had a genuine psychological breakdown where I wanted just nothing to do,” she said about the time period when Jennifer’s Body was made. “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.”
