Brian Austin Green isn't worried about internet trolls.
In a wide-ranging interview with Hollywood Pipeline's Straight From the Source, the 44-year-old actor answered a number of popular questions about himself that appear in search engines like Google and Yahoo!. While scrolling through his Instagram account (@arent_you_that_guy), he offhandedly mentioned one photo, which showed his son Noah Shannon Green wearing a wig.
Host Dax Holt asked Brian whether he's bothered by people who have criticized him and wife Megan Fox for letting Noah wear dresses and wigs. "My son, he's 4. I've heard from some people that they don't agree. They don't agree with him wearing dresses," the Beverly Hills, 90210 star said. "To them I say, 'I don't care.' He's 4 and if he wants to wear it, then he wears it. It's dresses or goggles or slippers—whatever. It's his life. They're not my clothes. Obviously I don't wear the nicest stuff—I'm wearing shorts and a T-shirt and a watch you got me [earlier]."
"I feel like at 4, at 5, that's the time he should be having fun. He's not harming anyone wearing a dress," said Brian, who has four sons altogether. "So, if he wants to, awesome. Good on him."
Brian and Megan will occasionally share photos of their family on social media, but people are more likely to see their children in paparazzi photos. It's not something he likes, but he understands it. "I've been famous longer than paps have been around. When we did 90210, we had like two photographers—maybe—that we saw everywhere. They had to develop pictures and sell them. They'd sit at clubs or [school]," Brain recalled. "They wouldn't follow us around."
Things changed in the late 2000s. Said Brian, "I hadn't really experienced paps until Megan."
So, Brian took matters into his own hands. When he filmed a guest arc on ABC's Desperate Housewives in 2010 and 2011, he called a photo agency to shoot him on set with Marcia Cross.
"I realized that the more you give to people with cameras, the more they'll leave you alone. So, I played the game. At one point in life I figured out paparazzi aren't going anywhere. They're not going to leave me alone. They're not going to leave Megan alone. They're not going to stop taking pictures. So, how do you make it livable where you can take pictures when you have to and guys will leave you alone? It's part of the game," Brian reasoned. "It's part of working now."
As time went on, he would stage photo shoots with Megan in exchange for prolonged privacy.
"There's paparazzi and they take pictures, and they'll either hide behind stuff and take your picture or you tell them you're going to be somewhere and they spend five minutes taking pictures and then leave you alone. I'd call them up when we'd be in Hawaii and I'd go, 'I'm in Hawaii.' And he would take pictures for 10 minutes. He'd leave and then we'd have two weeks of just us, swimming and being in the ocean and having fun. Again, it's about learning how the game works, you know? It sucks. It sucks!" the actor admitted. "We don't call and say we're going to restaurants and doing stuff like that, or going to the zoo. But when you're in Hawaii and you're like, 'This is our vacation time'—or it's supposed to be—you want the time. It's supposed to be private and fun and relaxing. You feel like you're living in a bubble sometimes."
Still, he said, "It makes your life easier. Ten minutes for two weeks? It's worth it."