Megan Fox recalls disturbing experience during early career where she was 'oversexualised' as teenager
Megan Fox has told of her disgust about how she was 'treated in the industry' in the early years of her career.
She might be a household name these days, but the actress says she was 'persecuted', while climbing the proverbial career ladder in Hollywood.
The mother-of-four first appeared on the big screen in Holiday in the Sun when she was just 15, before going on to bag a string of impressive film and TV roles.
One of her most memorable gigs came when she starred as the titular character in the 2009 horror film, Jennifer's Body, who becomes possessed after being sacrificed to Satan and starts eating boys in her high school.
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Reflecting on this pivotal time in her life, Fox has now told how she was 'full of rage' before she began shooting the cult classic, due to how she was being perceived in the public eye.
At a special screening of Jennifer's Body as part of an Academy Museum of Motion Pictures event on Saturday (25 October), she recalled how she felt 'lost' while adjusting to her celebrity status.
"I think where I was at that point in my life, so lost, so full of that rage that I had towards how I had been treated in the industry," Fox said. "And how I was dealing with fame and the constant..."
The Transformers star then described the paparazzi who were hounding her at the time as 'ruthless' and remarked that 'the way they would talk to women' was completely out of line.
Recalling one shocking moment from the premiere of the 2009 film that catapulted her to stardom, Fox continued: "One [photographer] is like, ‘Megan, why are you such a b*tch?’
"And another guy is like, ‘Megan, do you think you're overrated? The internet says so'.
"And I'm just trying to do my job - I was asked to be at this premiere. I'm trying to get to my car. And so I had all of this grief and sorrow and also anger and rage that needed a place to go."
She said that she found her time portraying the possessed pupil Jennifer Check as 'cathartic' because it gave her the 'permission to be unhinged'.
Fox revealed she took the role because the script 'resonated' with her, explaining: "I felt like I was being persecuted at that time in my career, and I was struggling a lot with fame and kind of traumatised by fame.
"And so I resonated with those deeper layers of... you know, before she becomes a monster, she's just a teenage girl who gets sacrificed for somebody else's gain.
"And that very much resonated because that's kind of how I came into this industry, I think I was 19 when I made my first big movie, and that, I felt like, was reflecting back these energies that existed inside of myself.
"So there was something so fun about getting to tap into that darker feminine energy that no one really wants to allow. That was very healing for me because I was really struggling at that time.
"And if I had been able to warn myself or give myself advice or have any sort of grounding or clarity, I don't think you would've gotten the performance that you got."
Fox has previously spoken out about 'how sexualised' and 'objectified' she felt after starring in Jennifer's Body, admitting the film's release 'preceded a breaking point' for her.
"I had, I think, a genuine psychological breakdown where I just wanted nothing to do," she said in 2019. "I didn't want to be seen, I didn't want to have to take a photo, I didn't want to have to do a magazine.
"I didn't want to have to walk the carpet, I didn't want to have to be seen in public at all."
These feelings were compounded further due to her concise but controversial cameo in Bad Boys II, which saw her dance in a bikini and red cowboy hat at the age of 16.
In a previous interview with Jimmy Kimmel, Fox told how director Michael Bay got her to 'dance underneath a waterfall' scantily-clad while she was still a schoolgirl, the BBC reported.
She later clarified that she was 'never assaulted or preyed upon in what she felt was a sexual manner' by Bay, although she acknowledged she had 'endured some genuinely harrowing experiences in a ruthlessly misogynistic industry' elsewhere.
Topics: Megan Fox, Celebrity, Entertainment, TV and Film
Olivia Burke