Nothing sums up the two faces of social media quite like cancel culture. If people don’t like something, then they’ll go out of their way to make sure that everyone knows about it with hashtags frequently trending for any number of reasons, many of which are completely ridiculous.
Star Wars fans spent the better part of two years attacking Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi at every opportunity, only for the filmmaker to find himself being thanked for his contributions to the franchise once The Rise of Skywalker was released and they all turned on that one instead. Similarly, after facing calls to be canceled once the final chapter in the Skywalker Saga hit theaters, J.J. Abrams was also praised when everyone decided that Kathleen Kennedy was the one to blame.
Elsewhere, Robert Downey Jr. was asked to apologize for wearing blackface in Tropic Thunder by people that had never even seen the movie, Captain America: Civil War‘s title appeared to be an issue for all of five minutes, and the fact that John Krasinski exists was apparently enough to launch a smear campaign.
Michael Bay also recently faced some backlash when an old interview with Megan Fox resurfaced where she discussed her treatment working on the director’s Bad Boys II at the age of just 15, even though the actress then publicly defended him when unsubstantiated rumors about her audition for Transformers also started circulating online.
In a new interview, the 34 year-old has once again defended Bay, clarifying that while she’s definitely had some unsavory experiences in the business, none of them involved the man behind Bad Boys and Armageddon.
“It’s not something I’ve been longing to speak out on. But I don’t agree with cancel culture, and I don’t want people to get ‘canceled’ for something they didn’t do. While some of my working relationships were very challenging, that one specifically wasn’t one where I was sexually harassed or suffered, so I felt like I needed to defend him and clarify that. I have plenty of stories, but they don’t involve Michael. I really appreciated the support coming from people, but I also didn’t want to live with something that wasn’t the full truth.”
Honestly, if there’s one thing Michael Bay should publicly apologize for, it’s his decision to keep making terrible movies, with the 55 year-old never having surpassed his second directorial effort The Rock, which remains his best by some distance almost a quarter of a century later.
