MGK has remarkably thick skin when it comes to dealing with public scrutiny. Whether he’s barbing with Eminem or Conor McGregor or just trolls on the internet, it doesn’t seem to affect him. However, the reason for his thick skin comes from a devastating place.
In an extremely candid interview with Carter Gregory, Machine Gun Kelly revealed that his father called him a homophobic slur back when he was just a toddler. After Gregory opened up about his feelings on organized religion and the shame that can come with it, MGK nodded. He said he knows the feeling too well, recalling how his father ridiculed how he dressed.
“I grew up in a house where my dad constantly called me a f****t for dressing the way I did,” he admitted. “There was a folder my mom gave me of videos of me as a child. And I was one year old, and in the video my mom got me a punching bag, but it was pink. And he was like, ‘Why would you get our son that? You want him to be a f****?’ She got me a kitchen set, he said, ‘Why would you get him that? You want our son to be a f****t?’”
MGK Recalls How His Father’s Abuse Informed Who He Is Today
Machine Gun Kelly said that the biggest lesson he learned from that time was the importance of expressing himself. Ultimately, he decided he would dress however he wanted, as long as he didn’t take after his father.
“That helped me fight the system even more,” MGK continued. “Like, ‘Bro, I don’t want to f**king turn out like you. You’re miserable, you’re drunk as f**k every day. You’re on pills every day. You f**king don’t do s**t. You don’t have a job. I got dreams, and you want to follow a structure, but your structure can’t fit me; I’m too big for that.’”
All of this informed how he deals with public criticism. Being “built in a house of hate” made any internet comments deflect off of him with ease. Moreover, the ridicule always gave him something to strive for, a bigger destination in mind. “The only way he was able to get past how he was treated was because he kept dreaming. “I never loved what I was, but I loved what I could become,” MGK said. “It always gave me a goal.”
Photo by Isaiah Trickey/Getty Images
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