MGK Details Health Scare After Getting Blackout Tattoo.
Machine Gun Kelly got his blackout tattoo quickly. Despite his tattoo artist ROXX's advice to finish the body art over a two-year period, the "Loney Road" hitmaker revealed that he had a medical issue after receiving his dramatic ink in a matter of weeks.
“She warned me that it was going to be near impossible, even from a pain tolerance standpoint,” MGK stated in a June 8 interview with Billboard Canada. “I said, ‘Yeah, we got two months.’”
“After the first week, we hit my lymph nodes around my armpits and shoulders, and I got really sick,” he continued. “My skin was turning yellow. I wasn't able to sleep. I stopped being able to move certain parts of my upper body.”
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In a 2024 Instagram photo, MGK (real name Colson Baker) unveiled his drastic new appearance, labeling it "for spiritual purposes only."
He went into more detail about his choice to undergo surgery in his song "Don't Let Me Go."
"Just like I wish they would understand me one time," the Grammy nominee rapped stating. "I had a breakdown and tatted my entire body except one line."
In fact, MGK, the father of daughters Casie, 16, with his ex-girlfriend Emma Cannon, and Saga, 15 months, with his ex-girlfriend Megan Fox, adopted the eye-catching body art to signify a new phase in his life.
“I was looking for a change that wasn't just a sound wave,” he went on to Billboard Canada. “It had to be something physical.”
The "cliché" singer acknowledged that he didn't "recognize himself" after receiving the ink, which covers much of his upper body, including his prior tattoos, but he has grown to value that aspect.
"I saw death and drugs in all these patterns that I was literally writing on my body,” he clarified. “There were happy tattoos, sad tattoos, holy tattoos, hellish tattoos. It was like my bipolarity was screaming off my skin.”
The 36-year-old added that even while getting a tattoo had a negative impact on his body, the psychological advantages outweighed the physical discomfort.
“I came out the other side extremely inspired,” he made it clear. “Not just because of what I had done, but because of what I had to overcome.”
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