Before Transformers, Megan Fox Had A Controversial Cameo In Michael Bay's Bad Boys 2

In Michael Bay's 2007 film "Transformers," an expensive, clunky blockbuster about warring, transforming robots from beyond the stars, actress Megan Fox plays Mikaela, a skilled mechanic who learned about cars from her ex-con father. Mikaela was a kind, moral person, but knew a lot about Grand Theft Auto because of her spotty upbringing. The bulk of the film is noisy and nonsensical, and Michael Bay doesn't have a very nuanced eye when it comes to human interaction, but "Transformers" was an enormous hit, likely thanks to its nostalgia value (the Transformers were popular toys in the mid-1980s), and its ultra-slick production. 

Many critics lambasted the film — it has a mere 57% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes — citing its chaos, bad script, and military fetishism as its central weaknesses. Many also noted the way Bay tends to film Fox, posing his lead actress in skimpy outfits and letting the camera linger lasciviously on Fox's exposed midsection. Before he started making feature films, Bay worked in music videos, and his cinematic aesthetic reflects that; every shot needs to be a climax, making his films exhausting to watch. The women in Bay's films all tend to be lithe models. Indeed, Fox worked as a model.

Indeed, "Transformers" was not the first Michael Bay film Fox had worked on. In the 2003 actioner "Bad Boys II," Fox, then only 15, played a dancer at a nightclub. She described her scene — and her revealing outfit — on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" in 2009, and the interview ignited a small firestorm of controversy about the exploitation of young women in Hollywood. This interview came before the #MeToo movement began in earnest, but it's certainly part of the conversation.

When asked what it was like to work with Bay, Fox said:

"He's infamous for being sort of a tyrant on set. The first time I ever worked for him, actually, I had just turned 15, and I was an extra in 'Bad Boys II.' They 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 '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. At 15. I was in 10th grade." 

She pointed out that the bikini scene was "sort of a microcosm of how Bay's mind works." Fox brushed off the experience, feeling it to be outrageous, but also kind of silly. She also felt comfortable enough with Bay to work with him again on "Transformers" four years later. In 2020, however, the 2009 interview resurfaced after the proliferation of the #MeToo movement, and many critics pointed out that Bay's assignment for a 15-year-old Fox was wholly inappropriate. 

The "Bad Boys II" story is completely true, although Fox has said multiple times that she never once felt threatened, never encountered any direct sexual attention from her director or anyone else, and typically laughs about the situation. Her experience, however, was still criticized and even gave birth to rumors about her experience in Hollywood being far less wholesome than it has been. In June 2020, Fox wrote a rebuttal to some of the rumors, shared by Bay on his Instagram account.

The rumors that Fox addressed were about her experience auditioning for "Transformers." Some said that she was underage when she auditioned, and that Bay asked her to wear a swimsuit (again) and wash a car, fulfilling a fantasy depicted in many lascivious bikini car wash movies of the 1980s. None of that was true. Fox said that there was indeed sexism in Hollywood, and that women are indeed mistreated all the time, but that the truth was important. She said in a statement: 

"I know that a discussion has erupted online surrounding some of my experiences in Hollywood and the subsequent mishandling of this information by the media and society in general. 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 being projected. 

Fox continued: 

"I was around 15 or 16 years old when I was an extra in 'Bad Boys II." 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 Ferraris 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."

Fox, it seems, wanted to stress that she had total agency during the process, and was not being exploited. 

Fox finished her statement, saying: 

"So 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."

Bay, however, didn't always treat Fox with respect. In 2008, she revealed that Bay asked her to gain 10 pounds for the role of Mikaela in "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen," something she didn't really want to do. Fox didn't appear in "Transformers: Dark of the Moon" because she had enough of Bay's tyrannical behavior and (admittedly, foolishly) compared him to Hitler. Bay, in middle-school fashion, published an open letter, signed by anonymous crew members who worked on "Fallen," lambasting Fox for her snotty behavior on set. Bay, however, later clarified that while he and Fox butted heads on several occasions, he felt they worked well together. Other crew members came to Fox's defense, saying she was never unprofessional on set.

From 2009 until 2013, Fox was critical of Bay, mostly because he's difficult to work for and kind of a jerk. Bay and Fox ended up reconciling, however. Fox returned to Platinum Dunes, his production company, to star in "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles," which Bay produced. Most recently, Fox appeared in "Expend4bles" and will appear in the upcoming sci-fi film "Subservience."