Announcing a pregnancy is usually something people celebrate, but apparently not on the internet in 2024. On Monday, Megan Fox shared a photo of herself and her new baby bump on Instagram, covered in black paint, alongside the caption, ‘nothing is ever really lost. Welcome back.’

Her caption ‘nothing is ever really lost’ is a reference to a miscarriage she experienced in November last year with on-again-off-again partner Machine Gun Kelly (MGK), whose real name is Colson Baker. Fox tagged MGK in the post, also attaching a song the rapper wrote about their pregnancy loss on the picture. 

‘I’ve never been through anything like that in my life,’ Fox previously told Good Morning America of her miscarriage. ‘I have three kids [with ex-husband Brian Austin-Green], so it was very difficult for both of us, and it sent us on a very wild journey together and separately… trying to navigate, “What does this mean?” and “Why did this happen?”.’

She went into further detail about losing her baby at 10 weeks in her book Pretty Boys Are Poisonous, where she included a poem about grief.

It was obviously a difficult experience for the couple, who first started dating in 2020 and got engaged in January 2022. In February 2023, it was reported that they had called off their engagement and Fox later unfollowed MGK on social media. In March of this year, the Jennifer’s Body actress appeared on the Call Her Daddy podcast and confirmed that they had broken up, however the following month they were seen together celebrating MGK’s birthday and in July Fox appeared in his music video for ‘Lonely Road’.

Between their elusive relationship status, the black paint on Fox’s body in her Instagram announcement and the lore around them as a couple, the response to their baby news has been nothing short of disquieting.

Fox, for her part, has disabled the comments section on her Instagram post – a tell-tale sign that the discourse under her happy and personal news was becoming spiteful and unpleasant.

Over on X, comments include ‘that’s so demonic’, ‘why does something feel off about this’ and ‘seated for the divorce!’. Another post reads, ‘These people never do anything normal. Everything just has to look like some sick ritual huh’.

Other equally abhorrent contributions include questions about the unborn baby’s gender – asking if the parents are going to ‘let a boy be a boy’. It’s possible that they are referring to Fox’s three existing children, who were born boys and often dress in a gender ambiguous way.

It goes without saying that we are in a sorry place as a society – digital or otherwise – if this has become an acceptable way to respond to the news that someone is expecting a baby.

We can safely assume that Fox and MGK are back together or that they have decided to pursue this pregnancy together regardless. Why or how they plan to raise their child together, or whether they decide to get married in the future, is no one’s business but theirs.

It is also particularly vulnerable of Fox to refer to her previous pregnancy in her post, given the stigma surrounding miscarriages that prevents so many women from sharing their experiences. Between 10-25% of all pregnancies that a woman knows about end in miscarriage. So for anyone to use the word ‘demonic’, regardless of what they think about Fox and MGK’s relationship, to describe a ‘rainbow pregnancy’ or any pregnancy at all for that matter is cruel and potentially regressive.

In even darker corners of the internet, otherwise known as the Daily Mail comment section, hundreds of additional strangers have weighed in on the news. ‘Seems they’re constantly on the rocks without a baby around,’ says one user, ‘so that addition should be interesting for them. Although I suppose money can fix a lot of problems that plague most new parents.’

Others have written, ‘I worry for the future of the child’ and ‘it’s a band aid to patch a broken marriage’. Whatever happened to ‘congratulations’?

This isn’t the first time the couple have unwittingly summoned criticism of their relationship – albeit sometimes is warranted. When their engagement was announced in 2022, for example, it was reported that Fox’s emerald and diamond ring was fitted with a thorn to make it painful to remove. The ring caused a stir online with some people calling it a ‘reverse bear trap’, ‘terrifying’ and ‘a message that love is suffering, pain and endurance’.

They are openly ‘goth’ – just like Travis Barker and Kourtney Kardashian, who called their son Rocky Thirteen last November. It is not an aesthetic or a lifestyle that is appealing or suitable for everyone, but the term dates back more than 60 years, and it clearly a form of expression Fox and MGK enjoy. As for the black paint, they might find dusky pink balloon arches equally objectionable!

Sadly, Fox is all too used to unhinged, unwarranted and unfair commentary surrounding her personal life. Back in 2009, when she was 23 years old, Fox publicly criticised Transformers director Michael Bay in an interview with Wonderland. She said that he made her feel ‘vulnerable and fragile’ on set (she had worked with him since she was a teenager) and he responded by posting an open letter on his website where he claimed he had an ‘unbearable time’ watching her ‘try to act’ and then suggested she build a career as a porn star instead.

Fox was at the start of her career when this happened, and Bay’s comments no doubt played a role in derailing its trajectory. Fortunately, in the past five years, Fox has appeared in several films and authored her own poetry book. Alas, society will always seem to enjoy tearring down confident, resilient women.

The fact Fox had to disable the comments section of her pregnancy announcement less than 24 hours after posting it is, sadly, probably not a huge surprise to her. But that doesn’t mean it’s something anyone else should accept as ‘normal’ behaviour. Let’s try to create a world where they can do so however they like and simply be told ‘congratulations’.