Rachel Lee, the 21-year-old woman believed to have been the ringleader of Hollywood’s so-called “Bling Ring,” has pleaded no contest to one count of first-degree residential burglary. Lee will likely be sentenced to four years in state prison as part of her plea deal, in which prosecutors agreed to drop charges of conspiracy to commit burglary and receiving stolen property.

Lee and several of her friends, mostly teenagers, broke into the homes of Orlando Bloom, Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, Audrina Patridge, Ashley Tisdale, and Megan Fox and Brian Austin Green between September 2008 and August 2009. The robbers coordinated their hits by keeping track of celebrities’ public appearances and entering their homes when they were scheduled to be away.

According to Lee’s former cohort Alexis Neiers, Lee was in charge of everything that went down: “She started it all.”

Coincidentally, the Lifetime made-for-television movie The Bling Ring premiered on Monday night, just a few days after Lee entered her plea.

Former ‘Transformers’ actress Megan Fox is trying to change her image of the bad girl, trouble maker and wants people to take her a little more seriously now as an actor.

Fox started her transformation by removing one of her tattoos, a picture of Marilyn Monroe. The actress said that Marilyn had a lot of problems in her life and that she was bi-polar so Fox felt that it was a negative image to have tattooed on her body. Now it sounds like she’s chosen a few other tattoos that she may want removed in the future. One of Megan’s friends explains;

“Marilyn is almost gone and she has identified two other tattoos to go. She doesn’t regret having her tattoos but having grown up a lot in the last few months, she no longer identifies with certain things that inspired her when she was a teenager. Megan is making some big decisions.”

Fox is also trying to change the way people think of her as an actress and is moving away from the same types of roles she’s played over and over in the past and is trying her hand at comedy. She is starring in the upcoming films ‘Friends with Kids’, ‘The Dictator’ and the Judd Apatow film ‘This is Forty’.

The first thing Megan Fox asks me before we begin our interview is, “How are you? How is your kitty?”

That might have made me an unbiased Fox fan for life. It was an earlier conversation with her publicist that let Fox know about my four-month old rascal (Phoenix for those keeping track at home) who I’d be seeing in three days after deciding to depart the 2011 Toronto Film Festival a day early. Fox wasn’t trying to win points with a member or the press, however, she’s a huge animal lover. Currently, she has three dogs, a cat and two birds that she’s caring for. But, her current housing arrangement is a far cry from her previous home.

“At one point when we lived in a different house, it was set up differently,” Fox recalls. “We had seven dogs at one point, three cats. We’ve always had two birds. I had a pig at one point. Piggy Smalls.”

How did the “Transformers” star find herself with so many creatures under her care? Like many, the admitted “sucker for animals” just can’t see a cute dog or cat that’s homeless.

“I can’t drive by an animal adoption and not stop and take someone home with me, something home with me,” Fox says. “So, I adopt them like crazy. Brian [Austin Green] won’t let me stop anymore at shelters or at adoptions because I always leave with at least one animal because I feel like I can find them parents [or] homes and at least I feel like I know that they’re safe. I have to be careful with that. I could be one of those people on ‘Animal Hoarders’ if I’m not careful.”

While some animal adoptive groups should no doubt be calling Fox up to sign her up as a national spokeswoman the real point of our conversation this day was to discuss her role in the new comedy “Friends with Kids” which debuted at this year’s festival. The Jennifer Westfeldt comedy is a romantic comedy (in the best sense) about two Manhattan friends (Westfeldt and Adam Scott) who aren’t adjusting well to how their best friends have changed after having kids. The two decide that the best way to go about it is not to be married when you have one and then take their own advice. Fox plays a Broadway dancer who ends up dating Scott’s character after he’s become a single dad. The comedy, which was just picked up by Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions for a 2012 release, also stars Jon Hamm (Westfeldt’s significant other), Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Chris O’Dowd and Ed Burns.

In an earlier interview, Hamm volunteered that one of the reasons he and Westfeldt approached Fox wasn’t just because she fit the part, but because she was actually one of their neighbors. And while that was convenient, Fox, like most actors, responded to the material.

“You read a lot of scripts in this industry and most of them are sort of terrible,” Fox admits. “And [Westfeldt] is a really great smart writer and I loved the script. I met with Jen and we talked for a few hours and I liked her and she liked me. We just sort of moved forward from there.”

Shooting an indie in 22 days isn’t easy for anyone and Fox recognized how much Westfeldt had on her plate as a director, producer and one of the film’s main stars.

“I think she did a tremendous job with the responsibility that she had and the weight that was on her shoulders to sort of pull this off because it’s extremely difficult to be an actress, first of all, because there’s so much more pressure on women just because of how you need to look and this, that, and the other thing,” Fox says. “And also to be producing, directing, and have written the script and want to make sure that what she wrote comes to life on film. I mean, I don’t know how she did it, but she did and she pulled it off really well. I admire her for that because I get overwhelmed just going to work as a supporting character [and] acting.”

Fox has been quite funny when given the opportunity (“Jennifer’s Body,” “Saturday Night Live”), but “Friends” is the beginning of what has turned into a year of shooting comedies for the 25-year-old. She appears in the Sacha Baron Cohen flick “The Dictator” and just finished production on Judd Apatow’s “This is Forty.” When asked if it was specifically hard to sit through some of the funny roundtable scenes in “Friends” with improv masters such as Wiig, Scott and Rudolph, she admitted she had a “hard time getting through” sometimes.

“Like anything that Chris O’Dowd was in I really had a hard time not laughing because he makes me cry he’s so funny,” Fox says. “I worked with him on Judd’s movie also and he’s so hysterical. And I don’t think Adam would consider himself a comedian, but he’s very funny and very witty and very dry. I had fun playing off of actors like Adam. We went off book a lot and, of course, that didn’t end up in the movie because that wasn’t part of the script and her script is brilliant. But I love working with people who are like that, who are good with sort of improving and ad-libbing stuff.”

In a rare move for an Apatow film, “This is Forty” isn’t slated to hit theaters till Christmas 2012. The director has tried to keep as much of it a secret, but the fact it features the return of Pete (Paul Rudd) and Debbie (Leslie Mann) from “Knocked Up” has had movie fans buzzing.

“I don’t know that I’m able to really tell you anything,” Fox admits. “I mean, I’m on lockdown with the information. But I do have — the cast of this movie is outrageous, the people that Judd has in the movie. It’s mind-blowing. He has Albert Brooks and he has Jason Segal and Chris O’Dowd and he has these just comedic geniuses in his movie. And my favorite seen actually is one that I did with Chris and Jason. I mean, I haven’t seen it, but just making it was the most fun I’ve had at work in a long time.”

“This is 40″ involved an in-depth rehearsal process that Fox also became a big fan of.

“[Judd] sets up the camera, then the cast sort of gets together and he’ll say, ‘Alright, but at one point we kind of want you guys to be in a scene in this sort of place and this is the idea of what we want to happen. O.K., go.’ And then we will start talking and we’ll make a scene out of it. He picks what he likes and what he doesn’t like and then they expand on the things that they do like and sort of make scenes that way,” Fox explains. “By the time we came to shooting I was more accustomed to his process, but I love it. I think it’s fun. It just feels very alive. It never gets stale because it’s constantly changing, growing and morphing. You never know what he’s going to yell out at you. I loved it.”

The question for someone looking at Fox’s career has to be, “Where will she land?” A serious dramatic role didn’t work with last year’s festival entry “Passion Play” and jumping onto “Jonah Hex” and “How to Lose Friends & Alienate People” were calculated risks that went very wrong. And yet, Fox is one of the most recognizable women in the world, but seemingly now shut out of major studio action films after Michael Bay somehow convinced the press that it was his choice she didn’t return for the third “Transformers” (it was hers). For Fox, it’s just a bump in the road. She’s just gonna keep on taking the interesting projects that come her way.

“I don’t think I ever pondered like whether I would keep going or not,” Fox says of her acting career. I’ve been making one or two movies a year every year since I was 19. And the ones that hit big, hit big and the ones that don’t, don’t. And I’m already onto the next.”

“Friends with Kids” should hit theaters sometime in 2012.

MEGAN Fox is not including her sex symbol status in the reinvention of her image.

The actress as put on weight, taken on more diverse roles and is having tattoos removed in order to boost her career but she insists she still happy to use sex to sell herself on screen.

“I don’t really feel strongly about it one way or the other,” says Megan, 25, on her popularity among male audiences.

“In reality, there are a lot of guys whose initial attraction to a girl is mostly sexual so I don’t feel that’s an outrageous thing to portray in a movie.”

Fox recently revealed how she is a massive gamer and likes nothing better than to blow away her fellow cyber warriors whenever she gets the chance.

“I have Halo: Reach. I have a complete addiction to that game. It is sick,” she said.

“I play online mostly and (other gamers) have no idea. They make fun of my gamer tag too because it is funny. They are all a bunch of guys and it is clear that I am a girl so they make fun of my name, and they have no idea they are making fun of me.”

Megan Fox has every intention of becoming a mother — just not right now.

The 25-year-old actress, who wed Brian Austin Green in Hawaii in June 2010, recently spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about her desire to start a family.

“I absolutely want biological children,” she said. (She co-parents Green’s 9-year-old son Kassius with ex Vanessa Marcil.)

“I’ve always wanted kids. It’s just about the timing,” the Friends With Kids star explained.

The primary reason she and Green have waited to start a family, Fox says, is because they want to be financially stable.

“I have it in my mind about what amount of money I want in the bank so that I can protect that child’s future, and really protect it, so that kid never struggles,” she said. “Once I feel safe with that, then I’ll have kids.”

I’ve added new photos of Megan Fox & Brian Austin Green attendingToronto Film Festival to promote Megan’s movie Friends with Kids yesterday

GALLERY LINK:

• (x0069) Appearances 2011: At Friends With Kids Premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival – September 9th

I’ve added new photos of Megan Fox & Brian Austin Green departing LAX on September 8th.

GALLERY LINK:

• (x0018) Candids 2011: Megan and Brian Austin Green departing LAX- September 8th

Megan Fox got tired of hearing, “Eat a cheeseburger!”

The 25-year-old actress showed off her newfound shapely figure last month in L.A., but how did she acquire those healthy curves? She ditched Veganism!

“For a year and a half, until about four months ago, I followed a strict vegan diet based on raw fruits and vegetables,” she told Amica magazine, as excerpted by the Daily Mail. “No bread, no sugar and coffee. But I had lost too much weight.”

In March, Fox’s trainer Harley Pasternak addressed the actress’ then super-slim physique. “Believe it or not she has this really fast metabolism,” he told Hollywoodlife.com. “With her it’s really about she’s eating enough of the right things. People thought ‘Oh she must be anorexic,’ but she’s far from that!”

In fact, Pasternak said the Jennifer’s Body star struggled to gain weight.

So how did she put on a few healthy pounds? “Now, I eat a bit of everything,” she told Amica magazine, adding that she still trains three times a week with Pasternak.

Tell Us: What do you think of Megan’s shapelier figure?

I’ve added new photos of Megan Fox leaving Ken Paves Salon on September 1st.

GALLERY LINK:

• (x0009) Candids 2011: Megan Leaving Ken Paves Salon in West Hollywood- September 1st