“I can’t ever imagine myself doing nudity in a film,” Fox told MTV News in 2009. “It lives forever, especially now, with the internet. I just can’t. I just can’t.” In 2008, during the filming of Fox’s horror-comedy Jennifer’s Body, pictures of the actor in strategically placed pasties and flesh-toned underwear popped up online. “People take everything from you when you’re in this business. Your anonymity is stripped from you. They invade every part of your personal life, your relationships. Everything you say gets judged, everything you do gets judged. Literally all I have left are my private parts and I don’t want to also share them with the world,” she told MTV News. “I’d like to keep them private. That’s why they’re called that!” In 2016, Fox told The Sun that she wouldn’t be doing any graphic sex scenes and the actor described a specific project she had to turn down due to its explicit scenes. “I was offered a project that’s coming out on HBO that centers around the life of a prostitute, and it has very graphic sex scenes—things you would see in a pornographic film—and those are things that are degrading to the woman who’s playing the character,” said Fox. To see what another actor says about intimate moments on screen, see why Keira Knightley Says She’ll Only Do Sex Scenes in These Circumstances. Fox shares three sons with her ex-husband Brian Austin Green: eight-year-old Noah, seven-year-old Bodhi, and four-year-old Journey, and she also doesn’t want them to see their mom in sex scenes. “I don’t think my children should ever see me doing some of that stuff. I don’t think my boys could handle that,” she said. “There are just certain things boys should never see their mothers do.” Fox noted that it can be hard for children to see their mother in that light. “They can’t separate the experience from the reality from the art,” she said. “It gets very confusing when it’s your own mother.” Although Fox admitted her decision has limited the roles she’s able to take, she stands by it. “There are some good projects I’ve read that are with talented people, talented directors, but the things the women are required to do in the movie are things I can’t have my sons ever know or see,” she said.ae0fcc31ae342fd3a1346ebb1f342fcb And for more celebrity news delivered straight to your inbox, sign up for our daily newsletter. Throughout her two decades in Hollywood—she got her debut in a Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen movie in 2001—Fox has always played hyper-sexualized characters. But that’s not the actor’s choice, exactly. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being sexy. It’s just a problem that that part was so loud that it muted out the rest of who I was—and has continued to even now,” Fox told Entertainment Tonight in 2019. Growing up, she explained, she wasn’t aware of her looks, but upon starting a career as an actor, she was quickly defined by her appearance. “I knew that I was smart, I knew that I was funny, I knew that I was strange, but in a good way. Those are all things I thought were my strengths. I knew I was courageous and that I was not afraid to stand up when I thought an injustice had occurred. That’s who I was. And then, all of a sudden, I was none of those things,” she told ET. “I was supposed to just be a sexy girl or the prettiest girl or the most beautiful—which is the most burdensome title to have to carry around, especially when you don’t feel that way about yourself.” Fox told the outlet that being sexualized and objectified became such a dominant theme in her career and life that she reached “a breaking point.” “I think I had a genuine psychological breakdown where I wanted just nothing to do,” she explained. “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.” And for one interview with Fox that was scrutinized for this reason, #CancelKimmel Is Trending Because of This Old Interview With Megan Fox. After deciding to not take roles that she found degrading, Fox said she’s seen more “elevated” parts come her way. “The roles that are coming to me are different. I sent out into the universe that I transcended to a new stage, so now all the scripts that are coming in for me are more elevated,” she told Refinery29 in 2020. “They carry more gravity. I’m excited about that. I feel really comfortable with the space I’m in right now.” One such role was 2020’s Rogue, an action movie in which Fox played a mercenary whose team gets trapped in Africa. “[I wanted] to make Megan credible, rather than this sex object that’s she so frequently used for by male filmmakers,” director M.J. Bassett told Refinery29. “I said, ‘There’s no romance in here, you’re not wearing skimpy T-shirts or short-shorts. You’re carrying full battle rattle, and I’m going to expect you to get dirty and bruised.’ She was quite excited by that, to be honest.” And it seems the tides are finally turning for Fox. One reviewer said of the performance, “Fox is a strong heroic presence, bringing a bit more emotional depth to her performance than I anticipated.” And for another controversial revealing moment, check out Sharon Stone Says She Was Lied to About This Famous Explicit Scene.
