Is Megan Fox in an abusive relationship?
It’s been over two years since Megan Fox and Machine Gun Kelly began their very embarrassing relationship and, despite a few break-up rumors, the couple appears to be going strong, with their engagement announced in January of this year.
The Power Couple of Cringe is still not without controversy. Most of the world seems to find the pair unbearably obnoxious, but that’s a light critique compared to one that’s begun emerging on social media in the last few months, perhaps hitting its current peak with the following Twitter thread alleging that MGK is an abusive partner toward Fox:
Supporting evidence in the thread comes in various forms, from anonymous claims by Fox’s supposed “friends,” to vague statements about the couple’s sex life, to genuinely unsettling confessions about MGK’s rocky mental health.
That last point caused some concern two months ago as well after Kelly opened up in his Hulu documentary, Life In Pink, about calling Fox during a suicide attempt in July of 2020. “Megan went to Bulgaria to shoot a movie,” he said in the film. “And I started getting this really wild paranoia. Like, I kept getting paranoid that someone was gonna come and kill me.” He says he called Fox and began “freaking out on her,” eventually putting the barrel of a shotgun into his mouth during the phone call. Fortunately, when he actually pulled the trigger, the shell of the bullet got jammed in the barrel, saving his life.
Kelly’s recounting of the incident is undoubtedly horrifying, both for what it reveals about the state of his mental health at the time as well as what Fox must have gone through on the other end of that call. Kelly accused her of “not being there” for him prior to his suicide attempt and she remained silent as he pulled the trigger that could have killed him.
Threatening suicide is a manipulation tactic for many domestic abusers. Any attempt for the victim to assert their own needs, such as their need to leave the relationship, can be undermined by a fear of their partner committing an act of self-harm, making the overall dynamic coercive and potentially traumatizing. Is it really fair to accuse Machine Gun Kelly of attempting this, though? While we certainly shouldn’t underemphasize the pain Megan Fox likely faced during and after that July 2020 incident–nor should we assume she doesn’t currently feel responsible for maintaining her partner’s emotional wellness–from how Kelly recounted the incident himself, it doesn’t appear as though he was describing a suicide threat but a failed suicide attempt. This doesn’t change the trauma Fox may now suffer, but it does possibly demonstrate that Kelly was not attempting to manipulate his girlfriend; he was having a severe mental health crisis, which is different.
What matters primarily are the actions Kelly has taken to prevent something like this from happening again. I’m not a part of Kelly or Fox’s private lives, so the upkeep Kelly’s done to improve his own mental health is impossible to evaluate. I can say, at least, to his credit that Kelly did claim that the 2020 moment is what prompted him to start taking his mental health seriously. After the incident, he says he began receiving treatment for his substance abuse and started attending therapy. At no point in the documentary did he excuse his behavior or try to place blame on Fox; rather, he openly admitted to being paranoid and said there was something “not right” about his headspace at the time.
From what we, the public, can see, there isn’t much reason to believe that MGK is at all okay with the idea that the behavior he exhibited during that phone call is something he’d repeat as a coercive tactic against his partner.
Alarming as Kelly’s suicide attempt may be, it’s not unreasonable to assume that the current suspicion around his treatment of Fox would not be so easily stoked without knowledge of the pair’s respective histories.
Comments Machine Gun Kelly has made about young women (or more appropriately, young girls) in the past paint him as a standard pop music predator, not unlike the villains in the Megan Fox-fronted film Jennifer’s Body. In 2013, as a then-23-year-old, he publicly stated that he would see no issue with becoming sexually involved with the then-17-year-old Kylie Jenner. Part of his defense was that Jenner is famous, as if that somehow makes her less vulnerable to the scars of becoming underage prey to an adult man. Doubling down, though, it appears that MGK’s perspective on the permissibility of statutory rape has less to do with the celebrity status of his potential victim, and more to do with his own status as a successful musician. “Robert Plant, who is one of the greatest lead singers ever,” he explained. “Dated a girl who was 14. Axl Rose was one of the biggest badasses ever, dated a girl who was 16 and wrote a song on his first album about [her].”
In fairness to him, these comments were made 9 years ago and may not represent Kelly’s outlook today. As far as I’m currently aware, Kelly has never been accused of actually being involved with any underage girls in his adulthood. Still, his dismissive attitude toward the notion that taking advantage of the power dynamic between a fully grown man and his underage fans would be bad doesn’t bode well for how Kelly may be treating his female partners in private.
Though Kelly and Fox are similar in age, the fact that Fox has been made prey to adult men herself also helps inform the idea that the couple’s relationship is uneven. Her experiences with director Michael Bay, for instance, have been widely discussed due to Bay’s inappropriate treatment of Fox as a young actress, having her audition for roles by washing his car in a bikini and making her dance provocatively in a deleted scene for Bad Boys II at 15-years-old. Fox has since lamented that even feminists neglected to acknowledge her victimization within a patriarchal entertainment industry, saying, “I was always speaking out against some of the abusive, misogynistic, patriarchal things that were going on in Hollywood back in 2008 and 2009, way before people were ready to embrace that or tolerate it. And I actually got ridiculed for doing it.”
In a post-#MeToo world, Fox’s victimhood is being reconsidered, not only in her exploitation as a film star but in her personal life as well. Prior to MGK, Fox was in a long-term relationship with Brian Austin Green, her current ex-husband and father of her children, whom Fox met when she was 18 and he was 30. Now divorced, Fox has never spoken out against her former partner nor has she alleged to have ever suffered domestic abuse. Still, the age gap along with Fox’s history of objectification has led some to believe that she was and is vulnerable to mistreatment.
Fox fits well into a standard victim narrative, while Kelly fits into that of a predator. Much of the current concern for their relationship comes from that lens.
It’s not that there aren’t other alarming aspects of the couple’s dynamic. Upon announcing their engagement, it became public that Fox’s ring is made from a “band of thorns,” causing spikes on the band to dig into her skin and hurt her should she ever attempt to remove it. This is an especially weird choice considering Fox is an actress who will likely have to take her jewelry off to inhabit any upcoming roles. What’s even worse, though, is that Kelly’s engagement ring does not hold such a feature. This physical punishment for daring to exist outside the parameters of the pair’s relationship is for Fox only.
For now, Fox doesn’t seem to mind this arrangement. In an interview for Glamour, she implied the physical intensity involved in the couple’s bond is really an expression of their sexual fantasies. “It’s very bizarre,” she says. “To get judged for, like, ‘What if I am in a BDSM relationship? And I’m like, yes – is that OK with you? Because that’s what I want.’… Because that is something that I prefer for myself. I feel sexual power in that way, by experiencing it that way.”
Most of the criticisms the pair’s relationship faces revolves around this apparent BDSM dynamic. The Twitter thread currently stoking distrust of MGK points out that Fox once wore a revealing gown to the VMAs at Kelly’s request, which she apparently complied with by saying, “Whatever you want, Daddy.” Fox has already addressed those who dislike this nickname for Kelly, telling Glamour, “I was being celebrated as being a feminist until I had the nerve to call my boyfriend, ‘Daddy.’ And a lot of people got upset about that, which I think is a funny conversation to actually have, because that goes into allowing women… to experience what we want in life, what we like. That is feminism.”
The author of the Twitter thread challenges the idea that Fox has genuinely consented to this situation, writing, “Isn’t it [convenient] for violent predators that their partner ‘consents’ to being controlled and traumatized by them? The concept of coercion just doesn’t exist!”
While coercion does certainly exist, we can’t discount the idea that Fox’s sexual submission to Kelly is not something she only engages with for her partner’s benefit. This type of exhibition could simply be something that makes Megan Fox horny.
The problem with the Twitter thread and much of the suspicion around Kelly and Fox’s relationship is not that there’s no reason to be concerned about Megan Fox and her intense new romance, but that the criticism of Machine Gun Kelly actively ignores the possible agency of Fox herself.
Another point of concern for the Twitter thread is the fact that MGK and Fox “drank” each other’s blood, citing that Marilyn Manson coerced his victims into practicing something similar. There’s yet to be any evidence, however, that ingesting Kelly’s blood wasn’t something Fox wanted to do. In fact, she attributed the act to her own spiritual beliefs which differed from Kelly’s. “We do consume each other’s blood on occasion for ritual purposes only,” she told Glamour. “I read tarot cards and I’m into astrology and I’m doing all these metaphysical practices and meditations. And I do rituals on new moons and full moons, and all these things. And so, when I do it, it’s a passage or it is used for a reason… He’s much more haphazard and hectic and chaotic, where he’s willing to just cut his chest open with broken glass and be like, ‘Take my soul.’”
Though the couple may have weird habits, it doesn’t seem as though Kelly’s will is the only one that matters to them privately. Fox has reasons of her own for how she participates in this cringe love affair.
Perhaps she is being coerced and has only convinced herself that she enjoys drinking blood and calling her fiance “Daddy” as a means of survival. But if that’s the case, it isn’t up to random Twitter users to decide she’s being abused for her. Victims of abuse deserve the right to establish their own boundaries at a pace that’s right for them. If anyone can nudge them toward the exit door in an unhealthy partnership, it’s the loved ones that actually know them personally and show their support privately.
Because even if Megan Fox is being abused, propping up her personal life as a source of public speculation does not help her. It robs her of the agency to speak for herself.