The Shady Side Of Machine Gun Kelly

Machine Gun Kelly's first album, "Lace Up," came out in 2012 and he's been consistently putting out music since then. His 2020 record, ​​"Tickets to My Downfall," snagged the No. 1 spot on the Billboard 200 chart (his first time in the top spot) and earned major love from fans, although it didn't impress the Recording Academy enough to land him a Grammy nomination — something MGK wasn't shy to call out, tweeting, "wtf is wrong with the grammys." 

He's also no stranger to making headlines for a slew of other reasons, whether it's with his surprising net worth or his decision to change his name. However, nothing has kept him top-of-mind quite as much as MGK's relationship with Megan Fox. Not only has the actor had to defend their romance, but there has been no shortage of wild stories to come out of their union. Stories like Kelly stabbing himself while trying to impress her, the absolutely wild way they celebrated their engagement, and their engagement ring, which is literally a cut above the rest. However, despite his constant presence in the spotlight, there's a lot people still don't know about MGK. The untold truth of Machine Gun Kelly includes a long list of surprising, eyebrow-raising facts, including a truly shady side, which we're breaking down below.

Machine Gun Kelly is no stranger to firing off eyebrow-raising tweets, but one of his most controversial came in 2012. That's when he decided to openly thirst over Eminem's daughter, Hailie Jade, who was 16. Tweeting that he had seen photos of her, he proclaimed, "She is hot as f***, in the most respectful way possible cuz Em is king." Well, Slim Shady saw nothing respectful about it and, according to MGK, it affected his career. Speaking with Hot 97's "Ebro in the Morning," Kelly claimed the tweet is the reason why "certain people won't even listen or review [my album]" and "certain places, you won't even hear Machine Gun Kelly on." However, he was adamant he did nothing wrong. "I said 'She's beautiful, but all respect due. Eminem is king.' What's wrong with that?" he asked, reasoning, "Is there a 15-year age gap where I'm a creep for that? I was 21, dawg."

He was still addressing the tweet in 2018 when he told "The Breakfast Club" he "didn't feel like it was disrespectful." However, he appeared to backtrack, saying he didn't actually know how old Hailie was when he made his remarks. He also conceded, "I'm a father, I have a nine-year-old daughter, I get it, 100 percent." As for the person at the center of the drama — Em's daughter — a source told HollywoodLife that she "lives a quiet life" and is "not happy about being in the middle of her dad's feud with MGK. She does not like all the attention," they added.

Machine Gun Kelly may be adamant that he meant nothing harmful by calling Eminem's then-16-year-old daughter "hot as f***," but that wasn't the only time he made questionable comments about underage girls. As Screenshot pointed out in December 2021, he has a "long history of predatory behavior with teens." Rounding up receipts, the outlet pointed to a string of problematic tweets that MGK has since deleted. In one, the rapper proclaimed, "I wish 13/14/15 year old girls weren't allowed to be hot so I wouldn't feel like such a creeper when I look at them." In another, he recounted meeting a 13-year-old who was "going crazy over my 'Transformers' tattoo" and seemingly joked, "Don't [worry] tho y'all I won't pull a R Kelly."

Equally problematic is a largely forgotten 2013 interview with Fuse in which a 23-year-old MGK called a 17-year-old Kendall Jenner his top celebrity crush. When asked if he was "counting down the days" until her 18th birthday, he shot back, "I'm not waiting 'till she's 18, I'll go now." He then proceeded to defend himself, saying, "I'm not like a creepy age [...] and she's a celebrity — there is no limits right there." He also reasoned that Led Zeppelin singer Robert Plant "dated a girl that was 14" and Guns N' Roses frontman Axel Rose "dated a girl that was 16." Digging deeper, he concluded, "If Kendall Jenner was in your bedroom naked, and you're 50, you're going."

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It's no secret that Eminem and Machine Gun Kelly dislike each other, but their feud runs deeper than MGK's infamous Hailie tweet. Opening up about their long-standing beef in 2018, Eminem admitted to Sway that he was pissed about Kelly "doing a press run, basically, about Hailie." However, the real reason he dissed Kelly on "Not Alike" was because "he said, 'I'm the greatest rapper alive since my favorite rapper banned me from Shade 45.'" It was back in 2015 when MGK first made unproven claims that he had been banned from Eminem's SiriusXM hip-hop channel, Shade 45, because of said tweet. Well, Slim Shady didn't appreciate that rumor being spread and he unleashed his anger during the interview. "I don't give a f*** about your career," he said. "You think I actually f****** think about you? You know how many f****** rappers that are better than you? You're not even in the f****** conversation."

Em was also rubbed the wrong way by MGK's reported diss on Tech N9ne's track, "No Reason." As he explained, it put him in a "weird" position because he felt "I gotta answer this motherf*****," but didn't want to make him "bigger" by giving him more time in the spotlight. In the end, he went for it on "Not Alike" and, as he told Sway, he did hear Kelly's response to that, "Rap Devil." His thoughts? "It didn't feel like a diss to me. It just felt, like, pitiful," he slammed.

Machine Gun Kelly and Megan Fox became Instagram official in July 2020, but according to new claims from the rapper's ex, model Sommer Ray, he wasn't quite free to hook up with the actress when he did. Speaking on Logan Paul's "Impaulsive" podcast in March 2021, the 24-year-old influencer revealed she "dated" MGK but things didn't really go their way. Apparently, they "never had sex" because she likes to "wait at least three months" in order to ensure her partner is "someone good" and Kelly "just never passed the test." That's when she dropped the fact that she doesn't "really feel bad saying that because he did kind of cheat on me with Megan Fox ... if you look at the timeline."

Opening up about Kelly's shady boyfriend behavior, she said he forbade her from attending his "Bloody Valentine" video shoot (which starred Fox) because of "COVID restrictions" — an excuse she no longer believes. What's more, she said she joined him and Fox for their "Midnight in the Switchgrass" movie shoot and "waited in the hotel the whole time," never suspecting a thing. "I thought she was older and had kids and was married and stuff," Ray said. While she didn't specify when she thinks the infidelity began, she's sure it had nothing to do with her strict rules. She mused, "I think that even if I was having sex with him, he would still do that with Megan." In the end though, she's "not mad about it."

Machine Gun Kelly and Megan Fox got engaged in January 2022, launching a million memes and seriously mixed reaction to Fox's engagement ring. As the rapper explained on Instagram, the massive sparkler was designed by Stephen Webster to feature their birthstones — an emerald and diamond — and was "set on two magnetic bands of thorns that draw together as two halves of the same soul forming the obscure heart that is our love." Speaking with Vogue days later, Kelly confirmed he wasn't kidding about the thorns, reiterating that "the bands are actually thorns, so if she tries to take it off, it hurts." He quipped, "Love is pain!"

The design was surely meant to be romantic, but many didn't see it that way. Critics soon took to Twitter (via Mirror) to underscore that "love isn't supposed to hurt" and dub the ring a "huge red flag" and "the most toxic s***." One commentator joked, "Why not design the ring to look like an actual red flag?" Independent editor Victoria Richards even went as far as to ask if the ring is "romantic – or abusive?" Noting that Kelly's thorny design "inspires images of domestic abuse," she called it a "not-so-subtle display of toxic masculinity." Richards also argued that it's disturbing "that anyone who claims to love another can actively want to hurt them if they try to 'leave.'"

Eminem isn't the only high-profile artist Machine Gun Kelly has sparred with. In February 2021, Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor appeared to throw shade at Kelly and his switch from rap to rock, telling "Cutter's Rockcast" he hates "artists who failed in one genre and decided to go rock. And I think he knows who he is," he jibed. MGK waited until September to fire back during Chicago's Riot Fest, which he co-headlined with Slipknot. While on stage, he told fans (via Loudwire) he was "really happy" he wasn't "50 years old wearing a f****** weird mask on a f****** stage."

Kelly then took to Twitter to throw more dirt on Taylor, but it would backfire. Explaining that Taylor once recorded a verse for a song on "Tickets to My Downfall," Kelly proclaimed, "It was f****** terrible, so I didn't use it." According to him, Taylor "got mad about it" and "talked s***" because he's "bitter." Well, that wasn't exactly the truth, and Taylor had receipts to prove it. Tweeting that Kelly was acting like "a child," he explained, "I didn't do the track because I don't like when people try to 'write' for me. I said NO to THEM." He also shared screenshots of texts proving his side of the story. However, Kelly wouldn't admit he was wrong and in a petty response tweeted, "Basically, your verse was really bad. Respectfully, I was just telling you to rewrite it because it was really bad," he concluded.

Machine Gun Kelly's allegedly shady fan behavior was put on blast in May 2021 in a viral TikTok video posted by @emmielamp. Sharing a 2019 encounter she had with Kelly when she was 19, Lamp recalled how they met up in Cleveland and it became a "literal s*** show." Showing screenshots as proof, Lamp recalled him liking one of her photos and DM'd her. They agreed to meet up but soon, she was locked in a bathroom, crying because he had called her a "dumb" and "weird b****" and was "cussing me out." Why? In a follow-up video, Lamp said they went to The Diner and when he dropped his hat, she picked it up. Handing it to him, she said "Here, sis," which reportedly triggered a barrage of insults. "Maybe it's because we were in front of other people," she mused. "He said it was disrespectful" and that "he's never had a b**** disrespect him like that." Commenters backed her claims (via Daily Dot) with one writing, "He does this to girls in the towns that he's playing at." Another confirmed her friend "had a really similar thing happen."

As further evidence, one fan posted a photo of himself standing next to MGK (who's looking the other way) at ​​Reading Festival in 2019 and shared how when he asked for a pic, Kelly "ignored me. I asked again, he turned to me, looked me dead in the eye and said 'How many times I gotta tell you mother****** just take the f****** photo.'" Yikes.

Of all of the things that have landed Machine Gun Kelly in the headlines, his comments on the 2012 BET Awards red carpet top the list. That's because, while doing an interview, MGK thought it was the perfect time to talk about oral sex. More specifically, how great Black women are at it. Proclaiming he believes that women of color are too demure, he encouraged them to stop saying, "I don't do that unless you're my man" and instead "show your skills 'cause Black girls give the best h*** 100 percent." Backlash was swift with MadameNoire dubbing him "an ignorant white boy." A change.org petition was even launched, demanding Kelly be held "accountable for racist remarks towards Black Women" by "his employers," in other words, "Interscope and Bad Boy Records."

However, the terrible comments he made that day didn't end there, per MadameNoire. When one woman standing nearby overheard his speech, she walked away, sparking an unbelievable tirade from MGK. "B****, walk the f*** away," he slammed, calling the woman a "f****** dirty ignorant b****" and commenting on her "fake a** Louis Vuitton purse" and "lipstick all f***** up." In 2014, Kelly was asked about the comments during an interview with VladTV. Not one to back down, he stood firmly by what he said. "That's a f****** compliment," he proclaimed.