Machine Gun Kelly didn’t have the smoothest blackout tattoo process.
MGK, 36 — whose real name is Colson Baker — opened up about getting sick from his ink while chatting with Billboard Canada in a new interview published on Monday, June 8. To achieve his look, MGK worked with celebrity tattoo artist ROXX, who created his “dark mode” tattoo and recommended he take two years to get his desired results.
“She warned me that it was going to be near impossible, even from a pain tolerance standpoint,” he told the publication. “I said, ‘Yeah, we got two months.’”
He continued, “After the first week, we hit my lymph nodes around my armpits and shoulders, and I got really sick. My skin was turning yellow. I wasn’t able to sleep. I stopped being able to move certain parts of my upper body.”
Despite the symptoms he endured, the process was still worth it to MGK. “I came out the other side extremely inspired,” he explained. “Not just because of what I had done, but because of what I had to overcome.”
The rapper shared that he decided to get the tattoo because he was “looking for a change that wasn’t just a sound wave.”
“It had to be something physical,” he said, noting that his precious tattoos reminded him of phases in his life that he didn’t want to remember.
“Who the f*** am I?” MGK said, revealing there were days he didn’t recognize himself. “I saw death and drugs in all these patterns that I was literally writing on my body. There were happy tattoos, sad tattoos, holy tattoos, hellish tattoos. It was like my bipolarity was screaming off my skin.”
His final look was complete with a full blackout chest with cutouts over his arms and abs, revealing parts of his old tattoos. He first debuted his massive tattoo in February 2024 via Instagram.
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