It's a classic case of "who dumped whom?" On Wednesday, famed Hollywood reporter Nikki Finke broke news that director Michael Bay dropped actress Megan Fox from the cast of Transformers 3. Finke said the decision "ultimately" came down to Bay, who Fox once compared to Hitler. But Fox's PR people struck back, telling People magazine "It was her decision not to return."

Finke says Fox's claim is "absolutely untrue" insisting that "Paramount and Michael Bay kicked her to the curb by not picking up her option to do the threequel." In any case, Megan Fox will not be staring in Transformers 3 to the chagrin of many. Robert Quigley at Geekosystem laments, "she is a pretty gal, and was seen by many as the main reason anyone would want to sit through a Transformers movie." He cites a mounting pile of agitated commenters saying: “Yeah… They just cut their boxoffice in half."

Finke says Fox had it coming:

Did Megan deserve to get fired? I say yes. No actor/actress can expect to go around dissing a director and expect to work together as if nothing happened. Much less the egotistical Bay. But in Fox, he had met his match. Why, as recently as this week Megan was quoted as dissing Bay yet again. In recent months she has shown off a more natural skin hue instead of her usual orange color -- and blamed the Transformers helmer for her unhealthy tanning binge. "I had been tanning a lot so that Michael would be happy with my skin tone. Every spare moment of sun that was outside, I had to be in it," the 24-year-old actress lamented in Allure magazine. "It's not going to happen again because of the damage and the possible skin cancer."

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John Hudson