Machine Gun Kelly Opens Up About Finding Forgiveness for His Parents: ‘They’re Just Big Kids’

While appearing on Bunnie Xo’s Dumb Blonde podcast this week, she asked the “Cliché” artist about his childhood and some of his past comments about his youth.

“If I’ve spoken on my childhood,” MGK began.

“But as far as my childhood, some of that I was I’ve spoke on in a way that I was still just very confused and very angry. And so I do not stand by everything that I said about the people in my life and my childhood, because they deserve forgiveness and something different than I may have [said],” he said.

MGK has spoken over the years about his dark childhood, including how his father and grandmother were tried for murder and were both acquitted when he was a child. While he appeared on another episode of Dumb Blonde in August 2024, he also revealed how he would “get so mad” at his late father growing up if because he’d “freak out” if he heard loud noises.

“I would be like, ‘You’re supposed to be a man, dude. Why are you acting like this?’ and it just made me hate him,” MGK said at the time. “And then, you sit there, and you think about a kid who was on trial at 9 years old for the murder of his father … I had a very interesting talk with him on his deathbed about that moment.”

In this week’s episode of Dumb Blonde, MGK shared how he believed it was time for forgiveness, adding that parents were “just big kids.”

“I don’t know what the f–k I’m doing every single day of my life as a parent. You’re just figuring it out constantly, but hopefully doing it with love,” MGK added.

“Like in my situation with my father, he was so tormented from some of the most insane s–t that I could imagine a kid could go through that he had to figure it out. But with almost every possible bad circumstance going against him, too,” he added.

MGK revealed he felt “expectations are too high,” adding that children believe parents know everything because they “grew up looking up at them.”

“But we’re all just lost and trying to figure it out,” he added.

Bunnie Xo noted how she hadn’t heard a lot about MGK’s mother, who left her family when MGK was nine-years-old due to his father being “super gnarly.”

“My mom, who is such a sweet woman who I was molded to be so mad at,” he said, adding that he felt his father was the one who made him mad at his mother.

“I didn’t hear the word mom during my whole teenage years. All I heard was [explicit],” MGK revealed.

“And my mom is like the sweetest woman ever. She’s a scientist and she’s so smart and she’s beautiful. I really missed her and I really regret missing all those years because of who I was,” he continued. “Those years are really important. People shape you no matter how much you try to be your own.”