Megan Fox reflects on notorious 'dark' Jimmy Kimmel interview
Megan Fox has spoken out about the controversy surrounding her appearance on The Jimmy Kimmel Show in 2009.
The Transformers actor appeared on the chat show to discuss the latest instalment of the movie franchise. During the interview she revealed that director Michael Bay had placed her in a sexualised scene at the age of 15.
She explained that — in a cameo for Bad Boys II — she was instructed to dance under a waterfall in a stars-and-stripes bikini, cowboy hat and heels, because she was too young to appear in a club scene.
“At 15, I was in 10th grade. So that’s sort of a microcosm of how Bay’s mind works,” she told him.
Read more: Watch Megan Fox's camera-shy children disrupt live TV interview
Kimmel then responded: “Yeah, well, that’s really a microcosm of how all our minds work, but some of us have the decency to repress those thoughts and pretend that they don’t exist.”
The awkward interview later re-emerged in the wake of the Me Too movement, going viral as an example for how easily women were sexualised and their feelings dismissed as a joke.
Speaking to The Washington Post this week, Fox said that the conversation was nothing new to her, and mimicking his comment, said: “That was a microcosm of my whole life and whole interaction with Hollywood. It was just very dark.”
“I was so lost and trying to understand, like, how am I supposed to feel value or find purpose in this horrendous, patriarchal, misogynistic hell that was Hollywood at the time?,” she added.
The actor, now a mother-of-three, has since been praised for speaking out about her treatment in the industry at a time that it was unheard of.
She was eventually fired from Transformers 3 after calling Bay “a nightmare to work with” and compared him to Hitler.
Fox later apologised for the Hitler comment, but a second leak from the set of the movie saw a letter, written by three anonymous male crew members, branded her “an unfriendly b****”.
When the Jimmy Kimmel interview started circulating again online in 2019, Fox somewhat stood up for Bay, saying that despite the waterfall scene while she was still in 10th grade, she never felt like she was "preyed upon" by the action director.
Discussing the interview and her subsequent work with Bay on Transformers, Fox said as part of a statement: “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.
Read more: Megan Fox says 'Jennifer's Body' never stood a chance due to media image after 'Transformers'
“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.
“When it comes to my direct experiences with Michael, and Steven [Spielberg] for that matter, I was never assaulted or preyed upon in what I felt was a sexual manner.”
Watch: Megan Fox's children disturb live TV interview
