Late-night television personality Jimmy Kimmel and director Michael Bay are both under fire after a 2009 interview with Megan Fox on ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live went viral on Twitter where she described being sexualized at 15-years-old.
The interview in question took place when Megan was 23-years-old. She described working with Bay for the first time as an extra on the 2003 film Bad Boys II when she was 15. Fox was in the movie’s club scene where she wore an American flag bikini, a red cowboy hat, and six-inch heels, allegedly chosen by Bay himself. Since the Transformers actress was 15 at the time of filming and couldn’t legally sit at the bar, Bay’s alternative was to have the actress dance in her swimsuit.
"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 explained. "That's sort of a microcosm of how Bay's mind works."
Fox repeats she was just 15 multiple times throughout the story.
Kimmel’s response to Fox was, as he laughed, "Well, that's really a microcosm of how all our minds work. Some of us have the decency to repress those thoughts and pretend that they don't exist."
Twitter users were outraged at Kimmel’s reaction to Fox sharing her experience with being sexualized as a minor, finding it unacceptable for him to joke about it. Several users demanded an apology from the late-night host.
https://twitter.com/_/status/1274538711175356417
https://twitter.com/_/status/1274539206899986433
https://twitter.com/_/status/1274699528583577601
https://twitter.com/_/status/1274691488463704064
https://twitter.com/_/status/1274559075137859584
https://twitter.com/_/status/1274655415658307590
Fox and Bay would go on to work on the first two movies of the Transformers franchise together until their relationship soured and she departed from the franchise. The 34-year-old actress later struggled to pick up any major roles, leaving many to wonder if she had been blacklisted for her outspoken criticism of directors she had worked with and former projects.
None of the parties involved have commented on the matter.
