I recently saw Machine Gun Kelly in a list entitled ‘Most Stylish Musicians’ and it got me thinking three things: Stylish? Musician? What the fuck?
Last I knew, MGK (eurgh) was a sub-par rapper with a penchant for pissing people off, dissing Eminem, and saying weird things about underage girls (I’ll get to that). Apparently now he’s into pop punk and for some reason the fashion world has embraced his terrible style.
Granted, fashion is subjective, and I’m in no way the authoritative figure but whilst looking around, it seems the consensus is that he’s some sort of fashion icon. It triggered one of those weird moments where you’re not sure if you’re going mad or you just don’t get it. The same with painting his tongue black and then getting off with Megan Fox at an awards show: is this a joke or am I supposed to think it’s cool and edgy?
I’m not into bashing anyone just for what they wear, I’d be an absolute hypocrite if I did. I’m also not averse to anyone changing their style as MGK has so rapidly and in such an extreme way. Peoples tastes change and, as we grow, sometimes we become a bit more extreme. It just also happens to turn out that Kelly is also a bit of a dick.
Whether or not his antics over the years are true to his own views or simply to court headlines, there’s no denying the things he has done paint him in a pretty shitty light. The first and most famous of these actions was probably in 2012 when tweeting about Eminem’s 16 year old daughter, proclaiming her to be ‘hot as fuck’. When this eventually came to light it sparked diss tracks between the two - Eminem eventually ending it with ‘Killshot’, essentially stating that he wasn’t going to carry on beefing with a much lesser talent:
“I don't give a fuck about your career. You think I actually fuckin' think about you? You know how many fuckin' rappers that are better than you? You're not even in the fuckin' conversation.”
However, this wasn’t Machine Gun Kelly’s only weird comments about much younger girls. Not only did he proclaim then-17 year old Kendall Jenner to be his celebrity crush but, even stranger than that, he tweeted how he wished ’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’. I don’t even have anything to say about that, nor do I have to. It’s just even stranger that he would think that’s an ok thing to think, never mind put online.
Less worrying but equally dickish behaviour includes feuding with others such as Corey Taylor from Slipknot. But it’s precisely these shots at high profile performers that make me think a lot of it could be due to a need for attention rather than an actual hatred for the people he calls out. At a festival, performing at the same time as Slipknot, MGK addressed the crowd: “You all want to know what I’m happy that I’m not doing?” MGK asked the audience:
“Being 50 years old wearing a fucking weird mask on the fucking stage. Fucking shit.”
Granted Corey Taylor had made a thinly veiled dig a couple of years before but surely it’s no coincidence that as MGK tried to make his name in a new alternative genre he turned his venom away from Eminem and to other artists within his new chosen genre. It was a tried and tested format; a lot of rap fans had only heard of him because of his beef with Eminem, now he had a new audience to find.
The problem is once finding this audience he has a reputation for having absolutely no respect for them. In fact, shockingly, he’s a bit of a dick to fans too. After getting in touch with a fan over Instagram (again, although a similar age, this is still pretty weird) he met up with her. In an hilarious turn of events he dropped his hat and when she picked it up and handed it to him she accidentally called him ‘sis’. Machine Gun Kelly apparently doesn’t like being called ‘sis’. He proceeded to shout insults at her to the point of making her cry. She locked herself in the bathroom and never saw him again. I’d call that a close call.
Rumour has it he had a bit of a reputation for finding girls through social media, in the towns he was performing in. It’s not just female fans either. One male fan shared a picture he got at Reading Festival with Kelly, but it’s not your normal fan photo: Kelly is looking away uninterested. He’d ignored the fan at first and, after a second photo request, Kelly responded:
“How many times I gotta tell you motherfucker? Just take the fucking photo”
To be fair, at leas the resulting photo is hilarious. What was less hilarious was his fetishising of black women. Where else to open up about fetishising black women? The red carpet at the BET awards of course:
“Show your skills because black girls give the best head. 100% There’s a reason I’ve got a kid with a black woman”
When a woman standing nearby heard his comments she walked away in disgust. Did MGK apologise? Did he bollocks. He instead shouted after her, swearing and insulting her. He didn’t just stop there: in a later interview he claimed it was ‘a fucking compliment’. Clearly the man is an idiot.
I’m pretty sure there’ll be a follow up article to this in no time as someone who’s this much of a prick isn’t going to change too soon. But for now I think I’ve firmly backed up my point: Machine Gun Kelly is a wanker.