Summary
Megan Fox had a brief cameo as a dancer at a strip club in Michael Bay’s Bad Boys II (2003).
Megan Fox’s cameo in Bad Boys II stirred controversy since she was dressed in a bikini and dancing provocatively despite being only 16 at the time.
Although Megan Fox has since acknowledged that she was way too young for this kind of scene, she stated years later that she never felt preyed on in a sexual manner by Michael Bay.
Megan Fox’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo in Michael Bay’s Bad Boys II has a pretty controversial backstory. Six years after making her acting debut opposite the Olsen twins in Holiday in the Sun (2001), Megan Fox had her breakout role as Mikaela Banes in Transformers (2007), directed by Michael Bay. Fox returned for the first sequel, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, in 2009, but after a falling out with Bay sparked by her comments comparing him to “Napoleon” and “Hitler” on set (via Wonderland), Fox was replaced by Rosie Huntington-Whiteley as the female lead in Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011).
Contrary to popular belief, Transformers did not mark the beginning of Fox and Bay’s professional relationship. Fox and Bay’s first time working together actually took place four years prior, when Fox had a background role in Bad Boys II (2003), the first sequel to Bay’s action comedy Bad Boys (1995) starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence. Fox’s cameo in Bad Boys 2 lasts all but a few seconds, but it ended up drawing major controversy years later.
Related Where To Watch All 3 Bad Boys Movies
All three of the original Bad Boys movies released before the 2024 installment Ride or Die are available to watch online via various platforms.
Fox Appears In A Club Scene Toward The Beginning Of Bad Boys 2
Fox was an extra in a club scene that takes place early on in Bad Boys II. As Mike (Smith) and Marcus (Lawrence) fly to the hospital in a helicopter after Mike accidentally shot Marcus in the butt, the camera travels through the vents of a strip club where the owner is selling ecstasy. A young Fox appears for a split second during the montages of partygoers dancing to blaring techno music under bright flashing lights. The shot happens so fast that she can be difficult to spot, but she’s donning a red cowboy hat and dancing provocatively.
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Why Megan Fox’s Bad Boys 2 Role Is Controversial
Fox Was Still A Teenager When She Filmed This Scene
Fox’s cameo in Bad Boys II may have been brief, but it has since drawn controversy because of her age at the time. Bad Boys 2 was filmed between July and December 2002, when Fox was only 16 years old. Having a teenager dancing in a strip club is bad enough, but Fox’s outfit makes it even worse. Though it’s hard to tell in the actual scene, Fox later recalled in a 2009 interview on Jimmy Kimmel Live that, besides the cowboy hat, she was wearing nothing but “a stars-and-stripes bikini…and 6-inch heels” while filming that scene.
Fox initially claimed she ”
had just turned 15
” while filming her cameo in
Bad Boys 2,
but since her birthday is May 16, 1986, she would’ve just turned 16 based on the timeline.
Given the context of the scene combined with her minimal clothing and sensual dancing, there’s no denying that Fox was heavily sexualized in her
Bad Boys 2
role.
Fox also revealed that since she couldn’t be shown drinking at the bar of the strip club, Bay instead had her “dancing underneath a waterfall,getting soaking wet,” referring to the sprinklers on the ceiling of the club. It may not come across as much in the finished product, but given the context of the scene in Bad Boys 2 combined with her minimal clothing and sensual dancing, there’s no denying that Fox was heavily sexualized in her Bad Boys 2 role. Knowing that she was just a teenager makes the whole thing pretty uncomfortable.
What Megan Fox & Michael Bay Have Said About Her Bad Boys 2 Experience
In the same interview with Kimmel from 2009, Fox emphasized just how young she was when Bay instructed her to dance in a bikini in Bad Boys II, reiterating that this was just “a microcosm of how Bay’s mind works.” While she did go on to work with him again in the first two Transformers, as mentioned, Fox and Bay had a falling out due to his behavior on the Transformers set and didn’t make up until years later.
Fox would go on to partially address the backlash Bay received for her underaged Bad Boys 2 appearance when her 2009 Kimmel interview and the clip from the movie resurfaced in 2020. At the time, the false rumor that Bay made her wash his car in a bikini while auditioning for Transformers also began circulating again, leading some to believe that she was also underage during this fictitious bikini-clad Transformers audition.
On Instagram, Fox clarified that while she was “around 15 or 16 years old when [she] was an extra in Bad Boys II,” she was not underage when she auditioned for Transformers, nor was she wearing a bikini or “undressed or anything similar” at any point. In the same post, Fox stated that “when it comes to my direct experiences with Michael… I was never assaulted or preyed upon in what I felt was a sexual manner.”
Fox also clarified that she never washed Bay’s car during her audition, but that she was asked to mimic doing mechanical work on one of his Ferraris in one scene.
Bay reposted her statement on his Instagram account with a still from her Transformers audition to prove she was fully dressed and not washing his car. In the caption, Bay added, “I personally think[s] Megan is fantastic. I’m proud to have worked with her, and still am planning on working with her.” While Fox’s Bad Boys II cameo was definitely questionable given her age, based on her comments, it seems that Fox does not look back on it as a wholly negative experience.
Sources: Wonderland, Jimmy Kimmel Live, Instagram