While 2020 has been a tough year for everyone, Machine Gun Kelly‘s had some positives: He’s dating Megan Fox, his album Tickets to My Downfall is a hit — and, he reveals, he’s finally getting some help for issues that have plagued him for years.

Speaking to Dave Franco for Interview magazine, MGK says he had his first therapy session last month, noting, “I’m early in the process. The tools that I’ve been given to start with seem helpful, I think. I’m still kind of ripping my hair out. Why am I not changing overnight?…That’s really hard. But the commitment to change is inspiring, and I think will reverberate through the universe and definitely through my family.”

Kelly adds, “I can see it already with the people around me. The willingness to finally be happy with my own self has invited a much more vibrant energy around us than before.”

The “Bloody Valentine” artist said he needed help separating his onstage persona from his actual life.

“I’ve been Machine Gun Kelly since I was 15,” says the singer, born Colson Baker. “When you grow up and that’s the only name you have, you embody that person. Machine Gun Kelly was a gangster. He wasn’t a reverend. When you take on that moniker, you take on some of that energy.”

He also opens up about his drug use, revealing that he used to be addicted to Adderall.

“I think I watched myself believe that drugs were how you attained a level, or unlocked something in your brain, and I’ve seen the pros and cons of it,” MGK admits.

But now, he says, “My drug of choice is happiness and commitment to the art, rather than commitment to a vice that I believed made the art.”

By Andrea Dresdale
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