Michael Bay has been criticised after a resurfaced video showed Megan Fox describing the director making her “dance underneath a waterfall” in a bikini when she was 15 years old.
The clip, which was taken from a 2009 interview with Jimmy Kimmel, sees Fox describe her first experiences working with the Transformersdirector, who she describes as “infamous for being a tyrant on set".
“I had just turned 15 and I was an extra in Bad Boys II,” Fox explained. “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.
“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.”
As the audience laughs, Kimmel responded: “Perfectly wholesome,” with Fox explaining: “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 said. “Some of us have the decency to repress those thoughts and pretend that they don’t exist.”
The video was reshared on Twitter on Sunday (21 June), with the original poster writing: “Clip from 2009 where Megan Fox tells a story about Michael Bay sexualising her as a 15 y/o. The crowd laughs, and Kimmel makes gross jokes. Teen girls being preyed on by older men has never been taken seriously and still isn’t.”
In another clip from the same interview, the TV host offers Fox a drawing of himself and Fox “together” in bed with Kimmel trying to stick his tongue in the actor’s mouth.
In reaction to the original video, many viewers expressed their discomfort with both Bay and Kimmel, with one Twitter user writing: “The way Hollywood and the media treated Megan Fox in general was deeply disgusting.”
“I think Fox’s reaction shows a lot,” another tweeted. “She’s so clearly visibly upset by Kimmel’s reaction but can’t say anything to his awful joke. This is terrible to watch, it’s a kind of abuse in real-time. Even a high star celebrity is not immune.”
The Independent has approached Michael Bay and Jimmy Kimmel’s representatives for comment.
