Back in 2011, Bay clarified that it wasn’t his decision to lay off Fox but executive producer Steven Spielberg had made the call. “You know the Hitler thing. Steven (Spielberg) said, fire her right now,” he had told GQ. The entire fiasco rolled out when Fox in an interview with Wonderland magazine termed Bay a “nightmare to work with.”
“He’s like Napoleon and he wants to create this insane, infamous mad-man reputation. He wants to be like Hitler on his sets, and he is. So he’s a nightmare to work for.” “But when you get him away from set, and he’s not in director mode, I kind of really enjoy his personality because he’s so awkward, so hopelessly awkward. He has no social skills at all. And it’s endearing to watch him,” she added.
Bay on the other hand, had told GQ: “I wasn’t hurt, because I know that’s just Megan. Megan loves to get a response. And she does it in kind of the wrong way. I’m sorry, Megan. I’m sorry I made you work twelve hours. I’m sorry that I’m making you show up on time. Movies are not always warm and fuzzy.”
He later termed the actor ungrateful as well while talking to Wall Street Journal: “She says some very ridiculous things because she’s 23 years old and she still has a lot of growing to do… Nobody in the world knew about Megan Fox until I found her and put her in Transformers.”
“I like to think that I’ve had some luck in building actors’ careers with my films,” he said.
While it was disclosed that she was fired, her representatives meanwhile, reiterated that she herself had chosen not to go back for more films.
Shia LaBeouf too had defended the director as he told GQ: “She started [expletive] talking our captain. Which you can’t do.”
“Megan developed this Spice Girl strength, this woman-empowerment [stuff] that made her feel awkward about her involvement with Michael, who some people think is a very lascivious filmmaker, the way he films women.”
“Mike films women in a way that appeals to a 16-year-old sexuality. It’s summer. It’s Michael’s style. And I think [Fox] never got comfortable with it. This is a girl who was taken from complete obscurity and placed in a [expletive] role in front of the whole world and told she was the sexiest woman in America. And she had a hard time accepting it. When Mike would ask her to do specific things, there was no time for fluffy talk. We’re on the run. And the one thing Mike lacks is tact. There’s no time for ‘I would like you to just arch your back 70 degrees.’”