Megan Fox has issued a statement on Instagram, clarifying certain details about some of the horrific, sexualised treatment she received in the early stages of her career, after a furore erupted over a resurfaced Jimmy Kimmel interview from 2009.
The interview, posted to social media in recent days, shows a then-23-year-old Fox recounting a story of her experience on the set of Bad Boys II when she was just 15 years old.
“They were shooting this club scene, and they brought me in, and I was wearing a stars-and-stripes bikini and a red cowboy hat and, like, six-inch heels. He approved it, and they said, you know, Michael, she’s 15 so you can’t sit her at the bar and she can’t have a drink in her hand, so his solution to that problem was to then have me dancing underneath a waterfall getting soaking wet. At 15, I was in 10th grade,” Fox stated at the time.
Following that, social media delved into the myriad of other times Fox was fetishised throughout the halcyon days of her Hollywood career. In particular, a long-standing story that asserts Fox was forced to wash director Michael Bay‘s car as part of her audition for Transformers.
On Instagram this afternoon, Fox moved to downplay that story somewhat, asserting she merely pretended to do mechanical work on a car – Fox’s Transformers character was adept with engines – and that that should no detract from the litany of sexual misconduct stories that are yet to be told concerning prominent Hollywood figures.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CBwkEQ0lc62/
Fox’s statement, in full, reads thusly:
“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 of 20.”
“I did ‘work’ (me pretending to know how to hold a wrench) on one of Michael [Bay]’s Ferraris 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 [Bay], 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.”
