Megan Fox revisits past traumatic relationships in her new book of poetry — but says she’s not trying to get anyone “canceled.”
The actress appeared onstage at Racket NYC on Tuesday night for a conversation about Pretty Boys Are Poisonous with moderator Samantha Leach, Bustle‘s editor-at-large. During the wide-ranging talk, which also included audience questions, Fox, 37, said she put everything on the table for this poetry collection since she currently doesn’t intend on writing more books.
“I can’t control how other people react to my art.” she said, adding, “I had to write it for me. It could sell five copies or 5 million copies, [it doesn’t matter] … I had to do it for me.”
Some of the poems featured in Pretty Boys Are Poisonous detail physical and emotional abuse from Fox’s past relationships, though she doesn’t name names. Why not? As Fox puts it, the men who hurt her are “irrelevant,” and this is instead for women who’ve survived similar scenarios.
“For once, it should be about me,” said Fox, who also expressed “frustration” that she feels she can’t be fully vulnerable and candid because her celebrity status opens her up to being “picked apart.”
“I’m not trying to get anyone canceled,” she said. “I’m not karma.” Fox also later added, “You’re never gonna cancel me because I’m not a bad person. … You can try.”