Megan Fox isn’t known as a woman who sugarcoats her words. The ‘Transformers’ actress had even called out Hollywood’s casting couch culture multiple times for what it is, and she did it loudly. The ‘Jennifer’s Body’ actress has always been open about her own run-ins with powerful people trying to leverage their influence for something more than a handshake. From the start, she’s talked about the ualization of actresses, the sleazy behind-the-scenes treatment, and how so many women in the industry get cornered or written off.What exactly is the casting couch, anyway? It’s an old, ugly tradition in Hollywood. Directors, producers—basically, people with power—expecting physical favors in exchange for a shot at a role. For years, it got brushed off as a bad joke. However, when the #MeToo movement started in 2017 and blew the lid off, the whole world started paying attention.

Megan Fox on casting couch culture in Hollywood

When Megan’s career started taking off in the mid-2000s, she got a crash course in how this system really worked. In an interview with British GQ, back in 2009, she admitted the creepiest stuff didn’t even happen when she was unknown—it actually got worse after she became famous. She’d walk into meetings ready to talk scripts and characters, and instead, she’d find herself dodging advances from men who thought their status gave them a free pass. She never named names, but she made it clear: big players in Hollywood tried to take advantage, thinking she’d be easy to manipulate. They were wrong, and she made sure they knew it.Calling those experiences “really so heartbreaking,” Megan shared, “Like, Hollywood legends. You think you’re going to meet them and you’re so excited, like, ‘I can’t believe this person wants to have a conversation with me,’ and you get there, and you realise that’s not what they want, at all. It’s happened a lot this year, actually.”Megan, in fact, called out directors and producers directly, saying some of the industry’s most respected men would switch from business to personal in a blink—offering opportunities, then pushing for something else.The actress added, “There are some guys talking about actors who have been in the business for a while, who are very egocentric and have been able to sleep with a lot of girls for whatever reason, and because they don’t know me they think I’m going to be this little cupcake, this Marilyn Monroe type who’s going to bat my eyes and be like a receptacle for them.”But Fox didn’t play along. She set her boundaries, sometimes right in front of the whole crew, even though she knew it could cost her work.So, what did she do? Megan revealed, “I just shut them down immediately, right in front of people. It’s been so long since someone has told them no, they don’t really know how to deal with it. Because of this non-reality they live in, they’re fucked up, psychologically.”Sure, her bluntness didn’t always win her friends—but it shattered the idea that only outsiders abuse their influence.

Megan Fox on the aftermath of those harrowing experiences

All those casting couch experiences, they took a toll. Fox has spoken about how being constantly objectified wore her down. For Fox, being objectified was becoming a recurring theme when it came to her career, and the marketing plan for Jennifer’s Body was just another instance of the problem.In an one of her appearances at the Entertainment Tonight, Megan shared, “There was so much going on with me at that time, that movie being picked apart was not at the top of [my list of concerns],” adding, “Because I had such a fraught relationship with the public, and the media, and journalists, and I was struggling so much at that time in general, this didn’t stand out as a particularly painful moment, it was just part of the mix.““It wasn’t just that movie, it was every day of my life, all the time, with every project I worked on and every producer I worked with,” she recalled. “It preceded a breaking point for me.” Detailing on her “genuine psychological breakdown,” Megan revealed, “I wanted just nothing to do. I didn’t want to be seen, I didn’t want to have to take a photo, do a magazine, walk a carpet, I didn’t want to be seen in public at all because the fear, and the belief, and the absolute certainty that I was going to be mocked, or spat at, or someone was going to yell at me, or people would stone me or savage me for just being out… so I went through a very dark moment after that.“That’s not all.The actress shared that her speaking out against being objectified by the industry was met with a significantly different reaction than that received by actresses sharing similar stories today. “I feel like I was sort of out and in front of the #MeToo movement before the #MeToo movement happened, I was speaking out and saying, ‘Hey, these things are happening to me and they’re not OK,’” Fox explained. “And everyone was like, ‘Oh well, f**k you. We don’t care, you deserve it.’ Because everybody talked about how you looked or how you dressed or the jokes you made.”However, Megan didn’t let the culture break her. Fox says she handled things by being blunt and refusing to go along, even if it meant facing off with powerful people in public. It wasn’t easy—there’s always a risk when you push back. But for her, keeping her self-respect mattered more. She also says that stepping away from big studio movies and the Hollywood circus helped her regain control. She found some space, focused on herself, and figured out what balance looked like beyond the constant glare of fame.Megan feels that such people are encouraged to approach her by her misrepresentative public persona. “I have this sort of promiscuous image. People assume… that I’m this wild child. And I’m not like that at all. I think they’ve consumed this image that is partly fabricated,” she shared.But she won’t be censored. “I feel like most people in this business aim to make an image that is really very politically correct, and very android-like. It’s obviously not them. We’re all human. We all do horrible things and great things. I would rather have an image that is wild and promiscuous than to go out of my way to be proper all of the time.”