Director Michael Bay has been widely condemned on social media after a resurfaced clip from a 2009 episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live! shows Megan Fox alleging that the director told her to "dance underneath a waterfall" in a bikini when she was 15 years old.
The clip, which was shared on Twitter on Sunday, was accompanied with the caption: "Clip from 2009 where Megan Fox tells a story about Michael Bay sexualizing 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 [sic]."
The talk show's host, Jimmy Kimmel, has also faced criticism for his initial response to Fox's claims during the show.
You can see the clip below:In the video, Fox describes her early experiences working with the Transformers director, 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 said, adding: "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."
Kimmel responded, "perfectly wholesome", as the audience proceeded to laugh.
"At 15, I was in 10th grade. That’s kind of a microcosm of how Bay’s mind works," Fox said. To which, Kimmel responded by saying:
"Yeah, 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.''
Bad Boys II was released in 2003, and was the sequel to the 1995 movie starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence – both of which were directed by Bay.
Twitter quickly denounced both Bay and Kimmel, with one Twitter user writing, "WTF were they doing casting a 15 year-old as a bikini-wearing clubber?" while another corroborated by writing: "This is weirdly effed up. His reaction about repressing those feelings. Ewww [sic]."
"The way Hollywood and the media treated Megan Fox in general was deeply disgusting," added a third.
In another clip from the same interview, the host offers Fox a drawing of himself and her "together" in bed, with Kimmel trying to stick his tongue into her mouth.
Back in 2009, The Observer's Jason Solomons wrote about how Fox had told him that she got the part of Mikaela Banes in the first two Transformers movies after Michael Bay had her wash his car while he filmed her.
Solomons wrote:
"[Fox] told me she went to director Michael Bay’s house to audition and he made her wash his Ferrari while he filmed her. She said she didn’t know what had happened to the footage. When I put it to Bay himself, he looked suitably abashed. ‘Er, I don’t know where it is either.’"
In another unearthed interview from 2009, Fox told Wonderland Magazine that Bay was like "Hitler" on the sets of his movies. She said:
"He's like Napoleon and he wants to create this insane, infamous mad-man reputation.
"He wants to be like Hitler on his sets, and he is.
"So he's a nightmare to work for but when you get him away from set, and he's not in director mode, I kind of really enjoy his personality because he's so awkward, so hopelessly awkward. He has no social skills at all. And it's endearing to watch him."
In response to the comments, Michael Bay told GQ that Steven Spielberg advised him to fired her from the Transformers franchise, saying: "You know the Hitler thing. Steven (Spielberg) said, fire her right now.
"I wasn't hurt, because I know that's just Megan. Megan loves to get a response.
"And she does it in kind of the wrong way. I'm sorry, Megan. I'm sorry I made you work 12 hours. I'm sorry that I'm making you show up on time. Movies are not always warm and fuzzy.
