MGK Opens Up About Rehab and Split from Megan Fox on New Album: ‘There Didn’t Have to Be Any Drama’

Machine Gun Kelly has officially dropped his new album Lost Americana, the same one with a trailer narrated by none other than Bob Dylan. While fans have been dissecting the lyrics for hints about his personal life, MGK has also addressed some of it directly during his appearance on The New York Times’ Popcast.

On the podcast, he shared that the second-to-last track, “Treading Water,” was inspired by his rehab stay in late 2024, following an earlier visit in 2023. On the bridge, he sings, “I wrote this in Room Three, spending Christmas in rehabilitation/I got no phone, just a cell that I’m trapped in while my home’s vacant.”

In another verse, he appears to reflect on his on-and-off relationship with Megan Fox. “This’ll be the last time you hear me say sorry/That’ll be the last tear you waste on me crying/I broke this home,” he sings. “Just ruined their holiday, and lies don’t die, they grow/And everything you try to hide eventually shows.”

Although he admitted on the podcast that his music says things better than he could in conversation, MGK did open up more about both his time in rehab and his split from Fox. The pair, who welcomed a daughter in March, have remained publicly quiet. “Here’s the real truth,” he said. “I spent Christmas and New Year’s the whole month of December and late November, in a rehab facility. I came out, and suddenly the world was incredibly loud about me and my personal life. The irony is, neither Megan nor I have said a single word. Even now, there could have been zero drama, and no one would know, because we’ve never commented. Everything out there is just claims and things that happened beyond our control.”

Later in the conversation, he spoke about the shimmering pop track “Sweet Coraline,” which takes its name from the 2009 animated film and was also influenced by The Strokes. MGK revealed it was sparked by a strange run-in with a tourist in New York who asked him, “How did you fumble Megan Fox?”

“As a songwriter, I think I’ve been overlooked for a long time,” he reflected. “There’s a lot of complexity in simplicity. Every one of these songs has a story. With something like ‘Sweet Coraline,’ it’s easy to dismiss it as just a song about a girl. But it’s about one single sentence I turned into an entire record.”