Megan Fox has set the record straight regarding alleged stories about her treatment by director Michael Bay on a movie set when she was a teen.
The actress, 34, shared on Instagram Monday that while she has endured "genuinely harrowing experiences in a ruthlessly misogynistic industry," she was "never assaulted or preyed upon" by Bay or filmmaker Steven Spielberg, in reference to her time working on "Transformers" and "Bad Boys II."
Her clarification came after fans resurfaced a 2009 interview with late-night host Jimmy Kimmel in which she described being inappropriately sexualized as a 15-year-old extra in "Bad Boys II," which was directed by Bay.
She also mentioned Spielberg, who was a producer of "Transformers" and, according to Bay, had her leave the franchise after she likened Bay to Adolf Hitler and said he's "a nightmare to work for" in a magazine interview.
"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," she wrote on Instagram.
"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."
Fox also referenced the situation that has been brought back to light by the 2009 interview with Kimmel, in which she described wearing a bikini and heels as she danced as an extra in "Bad Boys II" when she was 15 years old.
"(Bay) approved it, and 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.’ So his solution to that problem was to then have me dancing underneath a waterfall getting soaking wet," Fox told Kimmel. "At 15, I was in 10th grade. That’s kind of a microcosm of how Bay’s mind works."
"Yeah, well that’s really a microcosm of how all our minds work," Kimmel replied.
Kimmel has also been castigated by her fans for what they see as an insensitive response, as well as a crude drawing he later shared of him and Fox in bed.
In her post Monday, Fox also addressed stories about her being filmed washing Bay's Ferrari during her audition for the first "Transformers" film in 2007.
"I was around 15 or 16 years old when I was an extra in Bad Boys II," she wrote on Instagram. "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 or 20.
"I did 'work' (me pretending to know how to hold a wrench) on one of Michael's Ferrari's 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."
She clarified that nothing unseemly happened during the audition.
"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."
She added that there are names of those who have mistreated her during her time in Hollywood, "but they are safely stored in the fragmented recesses of my heart."
Fox finished by thanking fans for their support.
"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."