Machine Gun Kelly is opening up about his sobriety journey, revealing that he hasn’t touched alcohol for nearly one year after a low-key stint in rehab.
“I’m completely sober from everything. I don’t drink anymore,” Kelly, 34, revealed during an episode of the “Dumb Blonde” podcast on Monday, August 5. “I haven’t drank since last August.”
Following his 2023 European tour, Kelly shared that he went to rehab — and not that many people knew.
“I didn’t tell anybody outside of the [people] closest to me,” he said. “That was my first time I ever went to rehab. They just gave me so many ways to operate the body and show where this anger is coming from and methods to quell it.”
He continued: “I met with a lot of psychiatrists, some who gave up on me and many therapists who did the same. But I ended up falling into an awareness of what my condition is and have made peace with it. It’s a constant tightrope walk.”
Kelly made the decision to keep his “condition” private for now. “That one feels a little too brand new for me to confidently say,” he shared.
The musician discussed his “mental health and sobriety” journey with podcast host Bunnie XO, who starred in the rapper’s “Lonely Road” music video alongside her husband, Jelly Roll, and Kelly’s fiancée, Megan Fox.
“You hold to that,” Bunnie, 44, said when praising Kelly’s sobriety. “Because I actually wanted you to have a drinking contest with my husband and you were like, ‘No, I’m sober.’”
Kelly replied, “It just kills me because I just know I would have f—king drank that man under the table.”
Maintaining his sobriety while filming the music video was “hard,” Kelly admitted.
“He rented out the bowling alley and the drinks kept coming,” he recalled. “That was probably the second night in this process that I’ve had where I’ve ever just been looking. And it was probably just from that place of ego where I was just like, ‘Jelly, I just want to drink you under the table.’”
Megan Fox and Machine Gun Kelly started off their relationship by being coworkers, but it quickly evolved into something more. Fox and Kelly (real name Colson Baker) met on the set of Midnight in the Switchgrass in March 2020. At the time, Fox was married to Brian Austin Green. Two months later, the costars were […]
When he and Jelly, 39, arrived to set the next day, one was doing way better than the other.
“I saw his condition and I saw mine and I was like, ‘Yeah, I made the right choice,’” Kelly said. “It was rough.”
Further discussing his sobriety journey, Kelly admitted that Fox, 38, has helped a lot along the way. The couple, who began dating in 2020, have experienced ups and downs in their relationship since their 2022 engagement.
“Megan has for sure been extremely helpful in dealing with the kind of psychological withdrawals that come with [sobriety],” he shared. (Elsewhere in the episode, Kelly shared that “weed and alcohol” were his vices of choice, noting that he also “loved snorting Vyvans,” along with hydrocodone and Percocet.)
“I continue to embrace that this journey is gonna be hard for me, but I accept it and forgive myself,” he added. “I’m also really hard on myself, very self-deprecating. So, I guess, I’m just happy that I’m able to start to be comfortable enough to show people who I am, because I kind of depended on my art to do that.”
If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, contact the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).