Megan Fox has opened up about the 'misogynistic hell' she faced during the first year of her career.
In a recent interview with The Washington Post, the 35-year-old actor said: "That was a microcosm of my whole life and whole interaction with Hollywood. It was just very dark."
She went on to add: "I was so lost and trying to understand, like, how am I supposed to feel value or find purpose in this horrendous, patriarchal, misogynistic hell that was Hollywood at the time.
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"Because I had already been speaking out against it and everyone, including other women, received me in a very negative way for doing it."
She explains how, at the beginning of her career, she was typecast as the stuck-up popular girl alongside the likes of Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen, Lindsay Lohan and Kaley Cuoco where all her characters were 'essentially the exact same' with her lines being 'interchangeable'.
This, she says, seemed to give people the illusion that she'd been playing herself. She said: "I think there has been a pervasive perception of me as a shallow succubus, if that makes any sense, for at least the first decade of my career.
"And then that started to change more recently as people revisited some of my interviews, listened to me speak and started to see me in a different way."
She went on to highlight the blatant misogyny that she was facing when she recalled an appearance back in 2009 on Jimmy Kimmel Live! where she revealed how she was sexualised at the age of 15 during her time on Bad Boys 2. Instead of being given support for opening up, everyone laughed.
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A viral clip resurfaced from the time and Fox posted on Instagram thanking fans for their support but said that the interview was just another day in Hollywood.
Lacking on confidence, Fox decided to take a break from the industry to find her 'purpose' and says having children 'kind of saved her' as she needed the 'escape'.
But following the birth of her youngest son in 2016, Megan landed a role in New Girl starring alongside Zooey Deschanel and admits that her character, Reagan, was closest to her personality than any of her other performances.
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She said: "People were surprised that I was funny at all. More than being overlooked for my ability to handle comedy sometimes, I've always been surprised by how easy it was for people to overlook that I'm relatively intelligent.
"I was like, how does that get so lost when there's ridiculous amounts of material that can educate you otherwise?"
Featured Image Credit: Instagram/meganfoxTopics: Entertainment, Celebrity