Machine Gun Kelly has revealed his spectacular blackout tattoo, which covered the majority of his upper body within weeks, put him on the brink of a medical emergency and left him unable to move parts of his body.
The 36-year-old musician, born Colson Baker, debuted the striking new look in a 2024 Instagram post, captioning it simply “for spiritual purposes only.”
But in a new interview with Billboard Canada published on June 8, MGK spoke about the physical toll the expedited process took on him and why he pursued it anyway.
His tattoo artist ROXX advised him to complete the blackout over a period of two years.
He had other ideas.
“She warned me that it was going to be almost impossible, even from a pain tolerance standpoint,” he said. “I said, ‘Yeah, we have two months.'”
The consequences were serious.
“After the first week, we touched my lymph nodes around my armpits and shoulders, and I got really sick,” he recalls.
“My skin was turning yellow. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t move parts of my upper body.”
The decision to undergo such a dramatic physical transformation, he explained, marked a turning point.
The ink covered not only the skin, but also the vast collection of tattoos he had accumulated over the years, erasing his former self.
“I was looking for a change that wasn’t just a sound wave,” he said. “It had to be something physical.”
He also discussed the experience in his piece Don’t let me gorapping about having “a breakdown and tattooing my whole body except for one line”.
