All About Megan Fox's Parents, Mom Darlene and Dad Franklin Fox

Megan Fox's mom and dad are proud of everything she's accomplished

Megan Fox has learned a lot from her parents, Darlene and Franklin Fox.

The Jennifer’s Body star was born on May 16, 1986, in Oak Ridge, Tenn., to Gloria Darlene (née Cisson) and Franklin Thomas Fox. Her mom, who goes by her middle name, Darlene, worked multiple jobs before becoming a real estate manager while her dad, Franklin, was a parole officer.

The couple separated when Megan was 3 years old, which had a profound impact on her. In an interview with GQ, she described her childhood as “relatively happy” but admitted that she missed her dad after their split.

Darlene eventually remarried, and she relocated Megan and her sister Kristi to Florida. Within a few years, Megan convinced her mom to start letting her audition for acting roles, and Darlene was on board, knowing that it was her daughter's longtime dream.

By the time Megan was 18, she was landing work in Hollywood, crediting her mother for always being supportive. Still, the up-and-coming actress often thought about her dad, and the two later reconnected and began to rebuild their relationship.

Here's everything to know about Megan Fox’s parents, Gloria Darlene and Franklin Fox.

They married in the 1970s

After Darlene and Franklin wed, she held a number of different jobs to help pay the bills while he worked as a parole officer.

The couple lived in East Tennessee, where Megan was born in Oak Ridge and raised in the nearby city of Rockwood.

“It’s like a semi-mountain town, very rural,” she told GQ about her hometown. “My dad used to hunt ducks and my mom would put them in the pot. We lived really modestly. We had very little money.”

They share two daughters

Over a decade before Megan was born in May 1986, the couple welcomed their elder daughter, Kristi Branim Fox, in 1974.

In a 2024 interview on the Call Her Daddy podcast, Megan spoke about the age gap between her and Kristi, sharing that she spent much of her childhood alone.

“I have an older sister, but she's 12 years older. So, she was going to college when I was still really young, and she was gone a lot,” she said. “Prior to that, when I was really young, she was in high school, and she wasn't around much. She had a boyfriend, and she got married, and she moved out.”

Unlike her younger sister, Kristi, a school guidance counselor, stays out of the spotlight, but she and Megan have been spotted out together before.

Darlene and Franklin divorced in 1989

When Megan was 3 years old, her mom and dad split in 1989. Although the actress has said she “wasn’t traumatized” by their separation, she has been open about the impact it had on her as a child.

“I grew up craving the spotlight and once it happened, I immediately recoiled,” she told GQ. “I felt like, once I achieved that success then all of my internal issues would be solved and I would be this really confident person. And I'm not.”

The Transformers star, who has been open about her body dysmorphia, went on to explain how the divorce affected her self-esteem.

“It's not just physical insecurity. It's also a feeling of not being acceptable, and wanting to be,” she said. “Of course I think that has something to do with my parents' divorce and not seeing my dad and always feeling rejected. You don't ever really get past that.”

Megan's mom raised her

After Darlene and Franklin went their separate ways, Megan and her older sister were primarily raised by their mom. Darlene eventually married for the second time, and the family moved to Port St. Lucie in Florida.

“I love the beach and I love sunshine,” Megan told GQ about relocating with her mom and stepfather at the age of 10. However, that was one of the only positive aspects of the situation.

According to Megan, her stepfather, Tony, was “really strict” and religious, which caused her to rebel. “I was grounded for all of my childhood. Not most—all,” she told Elle.

At 14, she started regularly stealing her mother's car, and the behavior resulted in her not being allowed to get a license. “I wasn't doing anything particularly crazy. I just never appreciated authority figures preaching to me,” the New Girl star explained.

In her Call Her Daddy interview, the actress opened up more about her childhood, telling host Alex Cooper that after her parents divorced, it felt like her dad “kind of disappeared for a little while.”

She went on to say that she and her stepdad didn't mesh, and although he treated her mom well, Megan didn't receive the same treatment. "He isolated me from her," she said.

Megan felt “connected” to her mom’s feelings as a child

During that same Call Her Daddy interview, Megan spoke about her mother's relationship with her father and how it impacted her.

“I remember my mother's depression really, really affected me very deeply, and it was very visceral for me,” she said. “I was so connected to her sadness. Her feelings of being unfulfilled, and also her resentment towards relationships.”

She went on to say, “My dad is really outgoing and funny and charming, and really unique and sparkly, and she was not fulfilled in that relationship for whatever reason.”

Speaking about Franklin, Megan explained how his absence in her life was confusing and upsetting. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles alum shared that being away from him made her want to be with him even more, and she tried to understand why that wasn't possible.

"He always was a light and he still is a light, but he was separated from me in a way where I couldn’t get to the light," she said.

Her dad is incredibly proud of her

Because of her parents’ divorce, Megan and her father weren't close, but they seem to have a strong relationship now.

In 2016, Franklin told the Daily Mail about reconnecting with his daughter ahead of her welcoming another child with Brian Austin Green.

“Megan is an amazing mom and I can’t believe she is going to have three boys,” he said. “Becoming a grandfather has been a wonderful experience and brought us all even closer together.”

He went on to praise her perseverance and strength, saying, “It’s been far from easy for Megan and it just shows how determined, strong-willed and smart she is, to have achieved all she has, despite all she has been through.”

Franklin also touched on their former estrangement. “For a long time I wasn’t really a part of Megan’s life and that was heartbreaking," he shared. "There were the years when she told me she had been the victim of horrendous bullying and never felt good enough. And that tore me apart to know I was not there for her.”

“Thankfully Megan reached out to me in recent years and today we are rebuilding our family and are incredibly close,” he added. “I couldn’t be prouder of the woman my little girl has become.”

Related: Megan Fox's 3 Kids: All About Noah, Bodhi and Journey

Megan’s mom helped her career

Megan started modeling at the age of 13, but her true passion was acting.

“She knew what she wanted from the time she was small, and she was very determined and ambitious,” Darlene said in an interview with Cosmopolitan. “She did everything — dance class, choir, plays.”

When she was 15, Megan convinced her mom to take her to Los Angeles so that she could start auditioning. After landing a role on the TV series Ocean Ave., she was cast in her first major movie alongside Lindsay Lohan, Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen. By this point, she was 17 and Darlene stayed in L.A. for a year while she got settled.

“My mom lived with me until I started making enough money to support myself,” she told Elle. “I was asking her to leave the entire time. I'd been ready to move out since I was, like, 14.”

Along with helping her move, Darlene encouraged Megan to keep her hair dark. “My mom wouldn’t let me dye my hair blond,” she told The New York Times, adding, “[She] was right: being brunette was the one thing that made me memorable. I didn’t look like anybody else. So I clung to that.”

Her mom knew Machine Gun Kelly was “the one”

According to Megan, her mother had a gut feeling about her boyfriend, Machine Gun Kelly.

At the 2022 Billboard Music Awards, Machine Gun Kelly (né Colson Baker) performed his song “Twin Flame,” which he wrote about her.

On the red carpet, Megan spoke to Access Hollywood about the first time she heard the tune and how Darlene reacted.

“I ran home, and my mom happened to be staying with me,” she told the outlet. “I was like, ‘Mom, listen, Colson just wrote me this song,’ and I played it for her. She was like, ‘Well, that’s my future son-in-law. I know that right away.’ ”

Related: Megan Fox and Machine Gun Kelly's Relationship Timeline

The Johnny & Clyde star continued, sharing more information about Darlene admiration of Machine Gun Kelly.

“She got really drunk one of the first times they ever hung out, and she just kept petting him and being like, ‘You’re so pretty,’ ” she said with an accent, adding, “She’s southern.”

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