Megan Fox gave one of her first big interviews of 2021 to InStyle, where she spoke candidly about the way Hollywood’s sexism has affected her both professionally and personally as a woman who grew up in the spotlight.
Fox opened up about the way her romance with Machine Gun Kelly has been received, calling out the criticism of their four-year age gap as particularly patriarchal and absurd. Fox is 35, while Kelly is 31.
“You want to talk about patriarchy?” she started. “The fact that he’s four years younger than me, and people want to act like I’m dating a younger man. He’s 31, and I’m 35. Granted, he’s lived like he’s 19 his whole life, but he isn’t 19. No one would blink twice if George Clooney was dating someone four years younger. Four years? Go fuck yourself. We would have been in high school together. That’s so ridiculous that women are treated that way.”
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Fox also addressed the contrast between the way people online react to her being out with Kelly, away from her three children with her ex Brian Austin Green, versus how Green is treated when he is out without their kids.
“There’s so much judgment,” she started, saying people will ask her, “where are your kids?” whenever she is out with Kelly or on a red carpet.
“Do you ask their dad when he’s out?” she asked, mimicking their judgmental tone. “No, because you don’t expect a dad to be with the kids all the time, but I’m supposed to not be seen and be at home with my kids. They have another parent. I have to leave and sometimes I don’t want them photographed, and they don’t come with me. This whole year I’ve been very surprised by how archaic some of the mindsets still are in some people.”
Additionally, Fox told InStyle about the moment her world view really shifted—and what led to her ending her marriage with Green and ultimately meeting and falling for Kelly.
She said it happened at the end of 2019, when she was filming the action movie Rogue in South Africa. “I took all my crystals, and I set up my little temple inside my room. I turned on this massive TV, and [my film] Jonah Hex was on, which got panned in the press. It was supposed to be terrible.” She watched her performance, and “I had this incredible breakthrough, and I realized that I had been living in a self-imposed prison for so long because I let other people tell me who I was or what I wasn’t. I hid because I was hurt. That night, I stayed up and promised myself that I would never live one more day of my life from fear. I came home, and my whole life changed. I got a divorce and I started working more and doing more things. I ended up meeting Colson [Baker, Machine Gun Kelly’s real name], and then literally everything exploded from there.”
For his part, Kelly made a brief appearance in the interview and spoke about what Fox was like in the most enamored terms. “She’s like the earth,” he said. “When it’s summer, it’s the hottest summer. When it’s winter, it’s the most amazing chill. In the fall and spring, it’s a beautiful transition. She is unlike any person I have ever met in my life. I just want people to understand this is real. I don’t think people get the opportunity to believe in real, great love, and that’s what we have together.”
You can read Fox’s full interview here.
Alyssa Bailey
News and Strategy Editor
Alyssa Bailey is the news and strategy editor at ELLE.com, where she oversees coverage of celebrities and royals (particularly Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton).
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