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Megan Foxis opening up about how motherhood “saved” her.

TheJennifer’s Bodyactress, 35, shares three sons with ex Brian Austin Green (from whom shefiled for divorce last year), and in a newinterview withThe Washington Post, Fox recalls how welcoming her firstborn — sonNoah Shannon, who’s now 8½ — in September 2012 at age 26 gave her newfound “purpose.”

“That kind of saved me honestly,” Fox says. “I needed an escape.”

Prior to becoming a mom, she says she was “so lost and trying to understand how am I supposed to feel value or find purpose in this horrendous, patriarchal, misogynistic hell that was Hollywood at the time?” She recalled people having a “pervasive perception of me as a shallow succubus … for at least the first decade of my career.”

She tells the outlet that raising her kids has helped her grow to be more empathetic. “It’s fertile soil. It’s given me the ground that I needed to grow into something quite special,” she explains.

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Fox, who has previously been open abouther “harrowing” experiences in Hollywoodas a young star, recently discussed what it’s like being a working mom. She said onTheKelly ClarksonShowin May thatthere’s a “weird pressure” at play.

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“Hollywood is not adapted to women and us actually having lives and being moms,” said Fox. “I don’t have an answer for what we can do about that, other than as more women rise up the ranks and are in control and in power in Hollywood, then obviously those things will change. It’s been a patriarchy for so long.”

She added, “There is that thing in this industry of like, ‘Well, are you giving up? Are you just a mom now?’ There’s this weird pressure, which also then creates guilt. You go to work too soon to satisfy those people.”

source: people.com