Brian Austin Green has opened up about what went wrong in his marriage to Megan Fox, admitting he led with physical attraction rather than building a genuine friendship first.
Speaking on Sunday’s episode of the I Do, Part 2 podcast with hosts TJ Holmes and Amy Robach, the Beverly Hills, 90210 actor, 52, reflected candidly on their nearly 15-year relationship.
“My ex and I were together for almost 15 years. We were married for almost 10 years and I led with physical attraction,” he said, explaining that he had a pattern of gravitating towards physical attraction first and building a relationship around that afterwards.
When the marriage ended in May 2020, Green found himself navigating unexpected territory.
“I was divorced, which I didn’t expect. I had three kids. I was a single parent.” The couple share sons Noah, 13, Bodhi, 12, and Journey, 9.
Rather than simply moving on, Green chose to look inward. He went to therapy to understand what he had brought into the relationship that was “toxic and wasn’t good and wasn’t helping.”
The work led him to a simple but significant conclusion: he needed to be friends with someone before anything became romantic.
“I think when you start from a place of a genuine connection with someone, then you’re not so concerned about whether they are truly into you or not,” he said, explaining that it created space for the kind of transparency that sustains a relationship over time.
He also offered a blunt assessment of purely physical connections: “That’s only going to last for so long that you’re going to get to a point where you go, ‘I can’t stand that other person. So they’re not hot to me anymore.'”
He applied those lessons before meeting his now-fiancée, Dancing with the Stars professional Sharna Burgess, 41, in December 2020.
“Sharna and I talked about our best qualities and our worst qualities together. We sort of put it all out on the table.” The couple welcomed son Zane in June 2022 and got engaged the following year.
Fox, 40, moved on after the split with Machine Gun Kelly before that relationship ended in December 2024.
She gave birth to their daughter Saga in March 2025. Despite everything, Green and Fox have maintained an amicable relationship and have been seen on joint outings as co-parents.
