Machine Gun Kelly is facing criticism over comments he made about Kendall Jenner when she was underage during a 2013 interview.
In June 2013, the singer, 31, whose real name is Colson Baker, spoke with Fuse, where he was asked about his first celebrity crush.
Kelly, who was 23 years old at the time, revealed that his current celebrity crush was Jenner, who was 17 years old, before claiming that he would pursue her then and would not wait until she was 18.
“I don’t care who my first celebrity crush was because right now it’s Kendall Jenner,” MGK said in response to the question. “God damn I’ve said that so many motherf**king times, I hope that I’m snagging that. Don’t let me move to LA. Oof, I’m finding her.”
After the interviewer asked if the singer was “counting down the days until she’s 18,” as that is the age of consent in California, Kelly claimed that he wouldn’t wait until the Keeping Up With The Kardashians star was 18 because he was not at a “creepy age” and there’s “no limits” when it comes to celebrities.
“I’m not waiting until she’s 18, I’ll go now. I’m 23, dog, I’m not like a creepy age, you know what I’m saying?” MGK said, adding: “And she’s like a celebrity, there is no limits right there.”
Kelly then referenced celebrities who allegedly dated girls who were underage. “Axl Rose was one of the biggest bada**es ever, dated a girl who was 16 and wrote a song on his first album about the girl that was 16,” he claimed, referring to the lead vocalist of Guns N’ Roses. “I don’t care, say what you want, man, if Kendall Jenner is in your bedroom naked and you’re 50, you’re going.”
A clip of the interview was recently shared to TikTok by user @unluckyp1ckle, which has prompted viewers to express their disgust over the singer’s comments.
“It’s the fact that he’s done research to back his argument. This isn’t the first time someone’s told him it’s not okay,” one person claimed, while another said: “Repulsive – he thinks because he is famous he can mess with kids.”
“My mouth dropped lower and lower the more I kept watching,” someone else wrote.
Others noted that the comments were especially disturbing considering MGK’s fianceé Megan Fox has previously spoken about the trauma of being sexualised by Hollywood at a young age. While speaking to the Washington Post in 2021, Fox recalled how she’d been laughed at during a 2009 appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live after she’d spoken about the sexualistation that occured when she was a teenager.
The moment Fox was referring to occurred after she was asked by Kimmel what it was like to work with director Michael Bay, to which she’d recalled how she’d first worked with the director on Bad Boys II when she was 15 and had been cast as an extra in a bar scene.
However, according to Fox, Bay was told that she couldn’t be filmed sitting at the bar or with a drink because she was underage, before the actor noted that the “solution to that problem was to then have me dancing underneath a waterfall getting soaking wet”.
The recollection had prompted laughter from the audience, at which point Fox had pointed out that the scene in question was filmed when she was 15.
“That was a microcosm of my whole life and whole interaction with Hollywood,” she said last year while reflecting on the late-night host and audience’s reaction, adding: “It was just very dark.
“I was so lost and trying to understand, like, how am I supposed to feel value or find purpose in this horrendous, patriarchal, misogynistic hell that was Hollywood at the time?”
In light of MGK’s resurfaced comments, one person wrote: “…didn’t Megan leave Hollywood for a while because she was tired of being sexualised at a young age…”
Another said: “Megan Fox complained that Hollywood sexualised her at a young age but dates a man like this…”
Others condemned the singer’s comments while acknowledging that this isn’t the first time MGK has made controversial comments, as he previously commented on Eminem’s daughter Hailie Jade when she was 16.
According to BuzzFeed, Kelly had described the then-16 year old as “hot” in a tweet that has since been deleted. While Eminem did not address the comment, he revealed in 2015 that he had banned Kelly from appearing on his Shade 45 radio station, the outlet reports.
“And this is why Eminem ended him,” one person wrote in the comments under the TikTok video, while another said: “I knew Eminem was right about him.”
As of now, Kelly has not addressed the resurfaced comments.
The Independent has contacted a representative for Machine Gun Kelly and Axl Rose for comment.
