Hindsight really is 20/20 in 2020, and lately, looking back and realising certain pop culture moments have ‘not aged well’ is becoming a weekly occurrence. However, there are some that really make you stop and think – like Jimmy Kimmel’s 2009 interview with Megan Fox. Hear all about it below:
During the interview, Fox explained what it was like working with director Michael Bay.
“I had just turned 15, and I was an extra in Bad Boys 2,” Fox explained. “They were shooting this club scene and they brought me in. I was wearing a stars and stripes bikini and a red cowboy hat, and six inch heels – and [Michael Bay] approved it.”
“They said, ‘Michael, she’s 15 so you can’t sit her at the bar and she can’t have a drink in her hand,’” she continued. “So, his solution to that problem was to have me dancing underneath a waterfall getting soaking wet – at 15, I was in 10th grade.”
“That’s sort of a microcosm of how Bay’s mind works,” Fox added.
Where it starts to feel truly problematic is when Kimmel responds, “that’s a microcosm of how all our minds work.”
“Some of us have the decency to repress those thoughts, and pretend they don’t exist,” he joked.
It’s a big yikes and pretty crazy when you remember this interview occurred just over 10 years ago – which really, isn’t that long ago in the big scheme of things.
Perhaps, the worst part of re-watching the interview is knowing that later that year, Fox was fired from Bay’s Transformers series after she spoke out and called him “a nightmare to work for” and compared him to Hitler.
Speaking of women speaking out in Hollywood, hear about the #MeToo movement and Harvey Weinstein case below:
To make matters worse, Transformers crew members then published an open letter on Bay’s website, where they called Fox “trailer trash,” a “porn star” and accused her of “blabbing her trash mouth”.
In 2011, Megan Fox’s Transformers co-star Shia LaBeouf spoke out about how she got fired from the film. “Megan developed this Spice Girl strength, this woman-empowerment that made her feel awkward about her involvement with Michael, who some people think is a very lascivious filmmaker, the way he films women,” he told the LA Times.
“Mike films women in a way that appeals to a 16-year-old sexuality. It’s summer. It’s Michael’s style. And I think [Fox] never got comfortable with it,” LaBeouf continued. “This is a girl who was taken from complete obscurity and placed in a sex-driven role in front of the whole world and told she was the sexiest woman in America. And she had a hard time accepting.”
Knowing this, and the fact Fox was being sexualised on-set at just 15, begs the question: does Michael Bay, or Jimmy Kimmel owe Megan Fox an apology? Or does Hollywood owe the apology, for breeding, perpetuating and turning a blind eye to unhealthy attitudes and predatory behaviour?
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