Machine Gun Kelly has opened up about his feud with Corey Taylor, expressing regret for how it went down.
To recap, the back-and-forth all started with a soundbyte of the Slipknot frontman, who blasted “artists who failed in one genre and decided to go rock,” while adding, “and I think he knows who he is.” It was almost certainly a jab at MGK, who famously shifted from hip-hop to pop-punk.
The beef then spilled onto the stage when MGK used his set at Chicago’s Riot Fest to declare, “You all want to know what I’m happy that I’m not doing? Being 50 years old wearing a f**king weird mask on the f**king stage” — as Slipknot performed on a different stage at the same fest. The feud spread onto social media next, and even led to Machine Gun Kelly being booed at a festival performance where Slipknot wasn’t even in the lineup.
Both accused one another being bitter about a guest verse that Taylor said he respectively declined to re-record for MGK’s Tickets to My Downfall album. The beef hadn’t settled as of this January, when Taylor said MGK could “suck every inch of my dick.”
In his new Hulu documentary, Life in Pink, MGK expressed remorse for how both he and Taylor handled the situation.
“It’s funny, the whole Slipknot issue — which really isn’t a Slipknot issue, it’s a Corey issue,” he said [as transcribed by The Pit]. “That situation’s unfortunate because I think both of us let our egos get in the way.”
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He then opened up about the unused verse that sparked the incident: “I was a fan of Corey. That’s why I’d asked him to get on Tickets to My Downfall. He obviously had mutual respect, too, because he cut a verse. I kind of tried to give notes back, like, ‘Oh, you know, this wasn’t exactly what I was looking for, can we try this?’ And respectfully he was like, you know, ‘no.’ And I was like, ‘okay, cool.’ So we didn’t use it. You know, then I heard him on a podcast.”
“I could have handled it differently,” MGK concluded. “I should have just picked up the phone and been like, ‘Hey dude, why would you say that?’ But, instead, we all acted ridiculous.”
Now the ball is back in Taylor’s court. In the meantime, you can catch both Machine Gun Kelly and Slipknot on tour in the coming months. MGK is currently in the midst of his North American run, with tickets available here. Slipknot will kick off the next US leg of their “Knotfest Roadshow” tour in late September, with tickets available here.
