How Megan Fox & Brian Austin Green Transformed as Co-Parents

Machine Gun Kelly and Megan Fox's Daughter Saga Speaks in Sweet Video

Brian Austin Green didn't want to get divorced.

Admittedly "devastated" when Megan Fox broached the topic after they separated in 2019, with the actress ultimately filing to end their nine-year union in November 2020, Green has said that he was still blindsided when the end came.

"I honestly felt at that point like, ‘We got this,’" the Beverly Hills, 90210, alum recalled on a May 2025 episode of the Oldish podcast. "We had already been through almost 15 years of a relationship together so I believed it and I think she believed it at the time also.”

But as parents of Noah, 13, Bodhi, 12, and Journey, 9, together, there wasn't time for anyone to retreat to a corner to lick their respective wounds.

You've got to "pick your battles," Green—who's also dad to Zane, 4, with fiancée Sharna Burgess and Kassius, 21, with ex Vanessa Marcil—told E! News in 2024, noting that however he was feeling toward his ex-wife at any given moment had to come in a distant second to showing up for their children.

When it comes to separating from your romantic partner, "The only choice you have is how it affects the kids," the 52-year-old explained. "So, you have to decide, ‘OK, it's not about us getting along anymore. It's about us co-parenting, which is a totally different situation.'"

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Fox, who also shares 15-month-old daughter Saga with ex-fiancé Machine Gun Kelly, has similarly made a point of staying outwardly positive when it comes to her ex-husband.

"I think it's really important when people separate to never ever disparage the other parent or, even in a passive-aggressive way, make remarks," the 40-year-old said in 2023 on The Drew Barrymore Show. "I don't let anything in my energy like that when I'm around my kids because, if I don't accept and love their father, I'm rejecting a part of them because he's a part of who they are always."

And that sort of mindfulness pays dividends, as Green said on a November episode of the Inside of You podcast that he and Fox were doing great.

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Fox and Burgess got along "amazingly," he shared, while he and the Transformers actress did their best to "stay out of each other's way."

“I realized early on people separate for a reason,” Green said. “We're not gonna all of a sudden just be great friends as we're co-parenting.”

So, in their case, removing those "unrealistic expectations" from the equation was the way to move forward.

And though the road had its potholes—with Fox publicly accusing Green weeks before she filed for divorce of "feeding the pervasive narrative that I'm an absent mother and you are the perennial, eternally dedicated dad of the year"—hammering out a 50/50 custody arrangement was also key to avoiding future clashes.

Their split was finalized in February 2022. Meanwhile, Green said on Oldish that it was "really hard" for him to see Fox move on so quickly with MGK—"It went from, ‘Hey we should get a divorce’ to all of a sudden like, ‘Hey my twin flame,’ and ‘I manifested him'"—but that was yet another thing he couldn't outwardly dwell on, for the kids' sake.

Though, when Fox and MGK (born Colson Baker) broke up before their daughter was born, Green made it publicly clear he was on Team Fox.

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And there still doesn't seem to be any love lost between him and MGK, but the focus is now on the ties that bind the next generation.

Zane and sister Saga are "deeply in love," Burgess told People in June 2025, marveling over the "unbelievably big family and tribe with amazing kids in it" she is now a part of after wondering whether she was simply destined to have one baby.

"We're all so very lucky," said the Dancing With the Stars alum, who met Green in 2020 on a blind date set up by his business manager. His "kids are amazing and they’ve become built-in babysitters. The age gap actually works really well. We’re thrilled."

See more scenes from their blended family world in photos: