Megan Fox has spoken out about why she hasn’t added her name to the #MeToo movement. The Jennifer’s Body actress opened up as to why she’s chosen to stay quiet about her specific experiences in an article with the New York Times last Friday.
“I just didn’t think based on how I’d been received by people, and by feminists, that I would be a sympathetic victim,” the 32-year-old actress admitted.
“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,” she added.
The movie star has over 30 acting credits to her name, but says when she previously called out sexism in the industry, it wasn’t received well. In a 2009 interview on Jimmy Kimmel Live! , she revealed a bad experience with Transformers director Michael Bay.
“The first time I ever met him, I was 15 and I was an extra on Bad Boys II,” Fox told the late night host. “We 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 six-inch heels. And they took me to Mike and 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. And that’s… At 15. I was in 10th grade. So that’s sort of a microcosm of how Bay’s mind works.”
Megan had her big breakout role in Bay’s 2007 hit Transformers. But after her candour, her character Mikaela Banes was cut out of the franchise’s third installment, Transformers: Dark Of The Moon in 2011. Instead, she was replaced with actress Rosie Huntington-Whiteley.
The mom-of-two feels that maybe she was just “ahead of her time.”
“I don’t want to say this about myself, but let’s say that I was ahead of my time and so people weren’t able to understand.”
“Instead, I was rejected because of qualities that are now being praised in other women coming forward. And because of my experience, I feel it’s likely that I will always be just out of the collective understanding,” she said. “I don’t know if there will ever be a time where I’m considered normal or relatable or likable.”
