Megan Fox Addresses Objectification, Being Sexualized at Young Age by 'Ruthlessly Misogynistic' Hollywood

Megan Fox has found herself in the middle of a viral storm after an interview with Jimmy Kimmel from his eponymous show resurfaced on Monday in which she discusses being sexualized at 15 years old by director Michael Bay.

Kimmel's response, which was to make a crass joke, has led to calls for the comedian and late-night host to be canceled even after he recently made the announcement that he intends to take the rest of the summer off.

The ABC star was already under fire from social media for another resurfaced clip of him performing in blackface, with many making calls for him to apologize or at least acknowledge the bit amid ongoing Black Lives Matter protests. He has not done so.

Further, on Monday, audio purportedly of Kimmel doing an impression of Snoop Dogg from 1996 and using the n-word multiple times was also resurfaced, as reported by the New York Post, leading many to ask how he's still hosting the upcoming Emmys after Kevin Hart didn't host the Oscars following his decade-old tweets.

The Kimmel clip with Fox led to a reexamination of the tumultuous early years of her Hollywood career from fans, who began to feel that the actress deserved all the apologies as she was over-sexualized constantly from a young age and under-appreciated just as much for her acting ability.

In a lengthy response shared to her Instagram page, Fox acknowledged and shared her appreciation for all the support coming her way -- and the way of all women who have endured similar treatment at the hands of a "ruthlessly misogynistic" Hollywood machine --but she wanted to make sure that it was all rooted in truth.

As such, she sought to clarify some of the misconceptions and misunderstandings about her story and her relationships with some of the powerful figures she's worked under, including Steven Spielberg and Michael Bay.

In particular, she was quick to clarify that the aforementioned story about being sexualized at 15 years old had nothing to do with her work on "Transformers," for which she was 19 and older throughout the process, but for a cameo appearance as an extra on "Bad Boys II."

The actress said as much in the Kimmel clip, but it was clear that not everyone jumping in to defend and support her had watched the whole thing. In that clip, she said that she showed up on set in a stars-and-stripes bikini, cowboy hat and six-inch heels.

"[Bay] 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,'" Fox recalled. "So his solution to that problem was to then have me dancing underneath a waterfall getting soaking wet."

"At 15. I was in tenth grade," she continued. "So that's a microcosm of how Bay's mind works."

"Well that's really a microcosm of how all our minds work," Kimmel quipped back at the time as Fox looked visibly uncomfortable. "Some of us have the decency to suppress those thoughts and pretend that they don't exist."

One Twitter user began spreading the false narrative that Fox was forced at 15 to wash Bay's car in a bikini to land her "Transformers" job, which is a big part of why Fox felt the need to try and clarify and properly direct the outrage. Conflating multiple experiences to make things look worse than what they were doesn't help anyone.

"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," she wrote. "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," she continued. "I hope that whatever opinions are formed around these episodes will at least be seeded in the facts of the events."

She even came to the defense of Bay and Spielberg," adding, "When it comes to my direct experiences with Michael, and Steven for that matter, I was never assaulted or preyed upon in what I felt was a sexual manner."

She said that the experiences with these men that are being resurfaced now were "inconsequential in a long and arduous journey along which I have endured some genuinely harrowing experiences in a ruthlessly misogynstic industry."

She did not address other resurfaced moments from her "Transformers" experience, a franchise from which she was let go and described in an open letter on Bay's website (purportedly from the film's crew) as "trailer trash," a "porn star" and "dumb as rocks."

Nor did she talk about getting fired from the franchise after she compared working for Bay to working for Hitler, with Bay saying it was at Spielberg's insistence and the latter denying it. Nor did she address her later humiliation when leaked images of her nearly nude leaked from the "Jennifer's Body" production set.

The actress did suggest that there are certainly names in Hollywood that are deserving of cancellation from throughout her career, but that they "are safely stored in the fragmented recesses of my heart."

"May we all continue waking up," she captioned her post.

Bay re-posted Fox's message on his own Instagram page, along with a photo of her audition to prove she was not in a bikini.

"Megan Fox wrote this today. This is a still from her Audition taping 13 years ago," he wrote.

"No. She is not washing a car nor in a bikini like the press have falsely said for many years," he continued. "And I personally think Megan is fantastic. I'm proud to have worked with her, and still am planning on working with her."

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