Megan Fox has responded to concerns about reports of an audition she had with Michael Bay as a teenager, saying, “I was never attacked or attacked.”
Fox released a long statement on social media after footage of her speaking on Jimmy Kimmel Live in 2009 about an incident from her initial career reappeared. Fox said that when she was 15, Bay filmed her wearing a bikini and dancing under a waterfall as evidence for a scene in which Fox appears as an extra in a club scene in the 2003 film Bad Boys II.
Much criticism has been leveled at Bay for her apparent sexualization of Fox, including her brief appearance in Bad Boys II, directed by the original poster “liz w” which comments: “Teen girls who are victims of older men have never been taken seriously and it still isn’t. ” A 2009 report in the Observer that Fox was asked to wash Bay’s car as part of her audition for Transformers also sparked more outrage at her treatment by Bay.
However, Fox wrote: “While I greatly appreciate the large amount of support, I think I need to clear up a few details.”
She contested suggestions that her Transformers hearing was exploitative, saying she was “19 or 20” and that “she was not undressed or anything similar.” She added: “I was not younger at the time and they did not make me ‘wash’ or work in someone’s house [car] in a strange way to the script. “
“When it comes to my direct experiences with Michael [Bay]and steven [Spielberg] For that matter, I was never assaulted or attacked in what I felt was a sexual way. “
Fox was replaced in the Transformers franchise after completing the first two films when he criticized Bay in a magazine interview, saying “he is a nightmare to work” and “he wants to be like Hitler on his sets.” Bay said the show’s executive producer, Spielberg, insisted that she should be fired. However, their relationship seemed to mend when Bay cast him in the 2014 remake of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Fox added: “These specific instances were inconsequential on a long and arduous journey along which I have endured some truly heartbreaking experiences in a ruthlessly misogynistic industry. There are many names that deserve to go viral in the cancellation culture right now, but they are safely stored in the fragmented cutouts of my heart. “
