I think now’s a good time to remember how Michael Bay treated Megan Fox. They first worked together on Bad Boys 2. She was 15 years old and he had her wear a bikini and dance in a club. For her Transformers audition years later, he filmed her washing his car, and then there’s this little story Megan told during a press conference:
“I went to Bay Films and Michael Bay has an upstairs room which is where all the business happens and he was up there with Ramone, two other actors that were possibly going to be in the film, Shia was up there, three of the writers were up there. So it’s a room just full of men, a lot of men and they’re up there talking and discussing the movie or whatever and simultaneously he wanted me to have my wardrobe fitting. So I had to come up and down the stairs every time to show him a new outfit, its like forty stairs. I’d go down to this little room in the basement and put on an outfit and one of the outfits, let’s say, they’re basically like onesies or like baby jumpers with motorcycle boots on. And I would go up there and parade around in front of all them, because Michael…god-forbid he’d get up out of his chair and come into the hallway and look at me…I have to come into the room and do a little fashion show, a little three point turn, and then he would say he liked it or hated it for whatever reason and then we’d repeat the process. We did this for like five hours.”
During press for the second Transformers film, Megan compared Bay to Hitler in an interview with Wonderland, to which he responded by publishing an “open letter” on his website, supposedly written by Transformers crew members - but the language in it seemed oddly reminiscent of things he would say in interviews. In the letter, Megan was labeled a “bitch” and a “porn star.” It would be deleted within a day, and Bay would make another post on his site claiming he did not condone the letter whatsoever… despite it being posted on his official website to begin with.
Upon Steven Spielberg’s suggestion, Bay fired Megan from the third Transformers, and her career never recovered. She would later have to apologize to Bay to get a role in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
It’s not just Weinstein.