Megan Fox and Machine Gun Kelly were easily one of the most talked about (if not the most talked about) couples of 2021. While the musician and actress originally started dating in 2020, their controversial interviews and wild red carpet PDA became the stuff of legend the following year.
Let’s take a look back at when Megan Fox and Machine Gun Kelly started dating, plus all the pivotal moments that have occurred over the last few years in their love story.
March 2020
Fox and MGK meet on the set of Midnight in the Switchgrass, an indie thriller filmed in Puerto Rico. While later Fox would say on podcast Give Them Lala, “I knew right away that he was what I call a twin flame,” and MGK would go on to tell Howard Stern on The Howard Stern Show, “I didn’t know what [love] was until me and her made eye contact,” at the time the only information we have is sources telling E! News that the pair have been “hanging out” a lot after filming, and that they were “intrigued by each other and having a lot of fun.”
May 2020
In May 2020, paparazzi photos of Megan Fox and Machine Gun Kelly surface. First on Daily Mail of the couple getting takeaway, the photos spur rumors that Fox and then-husband Brian Austin Green have separated. This is then confirmed a few weeks later by Austin Green, who says on his podcast, “she said, ‘I realized when I was out of the country working alone that I feel more like myself and I liked myself better during that experience and I think that might be something worth trying for me.’ I was shocked and I was upset about it, but I can’t be upset at her because she didn’t ask to feel that way. It wasn’t a choice she made, that’s the way she honestly felt.”
Just after this, the music video for MGK’s track “Bloody Valentine” is released, in which Fox stars as his girlfriend. MGK then tweets a lyric from the song. “‘I’m calling you girlfriend, what the f**k.’ Life imitated art on that one.”
June 2020
Both E! News and Us Weekly confirm (via sources) that Megan Fox and Machine Gun Kelly are dating. There are also more paparazzi photos of the couple out on dates, and MGK even shares an Instagram Story of their matching nail art.
July 2020
This is the month everything got serious. Megan Fox and Machine Gun Kelly’s do their first joint interview with Lala Kent and Randall Emmett on their podcast, Give Them Lala … with Randall. In the interview, Fox says she sensed working with MGK on Midnight in the Switchgrass was going to be momentous for her. “I knew — I could feel that some wild s**t was going to happen to me from that meeting, but I wasn’t yet sure what. I just felt it like, deep in my soul — that something was going to come from that.”
She also says that on the second day of filming, she asked him to her trailer for lunch to do an astrology reading. “I went deep right away. I knew before I even did his chart, I said to him, he has a Pisces moon. I could tell by his energy.”
Then, the couple post their first Instagram photo together, with MGK captioning his “waited for eternity to find you again.”
August 2020
Next, it’s Fox’s turn to make things Instagram-official, posting a photo of the couple with the caption “achingly beautiful boy… My heart is yours.”
It ends up being quite a controversial post — Fox’s ex Brian Austin Green then uses the same caption on Twitter, alongside photos of his sons, three of which he shares with Fox.
Achingly beautiful boys…… My heart is yours pic.twitter.com/eWQwcblhg2
— Brian Austin Green (@withBAGpod) August 5, 2020
Fox later reflects on his post, telling Entertainment Tonight, “For whatever reason, people are very trigger happy to call me stupid or call me vain or call me a slut, which is crazy. I was in the same relationship for 15 years, you know? It’s bizarre, this image that gets projected onto me that people have just accepted and that’s lived for over a decade and that I never really did anything to earn in the first place.”
September – November 2020
Late 2020 sees both MGK and Megan Fox talking openly about their relationship, with Fox promoting MGK’s new album on her social channels, and MGK meeting her children. The relationship between Brian Austin Green and the couple also seems to smooth over and become amicable, according to sources.
November 2020
The couple make their red carpet debut at the American Music Awards, but compared to some of their future (and more notorious) red carpet appearances, it was fairly tame.
That same month, MGK spoke openly to Interview about his mental health struggles and the way in which Fox helped him through dark moments. “When you have a partner, mine being Megan, sitting there with you on those dark nights when you’re sweating and not being able to figure out why you’re so in your head, to help you get out of your head and put it in perspective, that really, really helps,” he told the outlet.
May 2021
Mid-2021 was Megan Fox and Machine Gun Kelly’s PDA era. The couple attends the Billboard Music Awards and go viral thanks to Fox’s bondage-inspired Mugler dress and PDA that bordered on NSFW.
One week later, the couple attends the iHeartRadio Music Awards, looking just as loved up (but a little less overtly sexual).
Instead, it’s their social media captions that send the world into a tailspin, with Fox tagging an image from the event with “Daddy issues Barbie” and MGK replying with “Daddy loves you.”
September 2021
For the MTV Video Music Awards, Megan Fox chooses Mugler again, this time wearing the naked dress to end all naked dresses — a sheer, gauzy nude midi with crystal details over a jeweled thong. Teamed with wet-look hair, the outfit goes down in history as one of her most memorable looks, and sparks plenty of praise online.
The couple are back at it again with the OTT PDA, this time alongside friends (and fellow PDA-lovers) Kourtney Kardashian and Travis Barker.
October 2021
The famous British GQ article, complete with joint cover shoot, is released and the quotes go viral as Fox and MGK speak about their “intense” relationship in full for the first time.
Some memorable lines include Fox saying “our souls chose this to absolutely have to face our shadow selves; to face things about ourselves we didn’t want to have to know, that we tried to push away,” and MGK describing their love as “ecstasy and agony.” “It should be light [like first love], but also we go to hell with each other,” he told the outlet. “It’s ecstasy and agony for sure… I don’t want people to think anything’s perfect with us. I didn’t say it was the darkest fairy tale for no reason. God help you if you would’ve met us last Saturday.”
Conversation online is polarized – some fans love the couple’s openness about their relationship up and down moments, others feel it paints a toxic picture of love that isn’t healthy.
January 2022
While their entire relationship always involved swirling engagement rumors, Megan Fox and Machine Gun Kelly get engaged officially in January 2022, with both stars sharing the news on Instagram.
Designed by Stephen Webster, MGK later tells Vogue that the ring includes thorns so that if Fox were to ever remove it, it would hurt her. “The concept is that the ring can come apart to make two rings,” he explains. “When it’s together, it’s held in place by a magnet. So you see how it snaps together? And then it forms an obscure heart. And you see this right here? The bands are actually thorns. So if she tries to take it off, it hurts…Love is pain!”
February – July 2022
The next few months see the couple discussing their relationship on various talk shows and magazines, with plenty of wedding plans in the mix. Rumors around having children also ramp up, with a source telling Entertainment Tonight that “expanding their family one day” is being discussed.
Machine Gun Kelly also tells James Corden that their vision was for a “red river” and a “gothic” aesthetic.
October 2022
For Halloween, Megan Fox and Machine Gun Kelly lean into the gossip around their relationship’s intensity, dressing up as Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee.
February 2023
The couple attends the 2023 Grammy Awards together in coordinated outfits — MGK in a silver Dolce & Gabbana suit and Fox in Zuhair Murad. MGK was nominated for best rock album. They seem just as in love as ever.
Just one week later, Megan Fox posts a cryptic Instagram carousel featuring bathroom selfies wearing the same outfit she wore to Drake’s Superbowl pre-party, plus a video of letters burning in a fire. Captioned with lyrics to Beyonce’s Lemonade album, “You can taste the dishonesty/ it’s all over your breath,” the actress had removed all photos of Machine Gun Kelly, plus unfollowed everyone except for three celebrity men — Harry Styles, Timothée Chalamet and Eminem.
Fans go into a meltdown over what this all means — Eminem notoriously has long-running issues with Machine Gun Kelly, plus the behavior is very at odds with the couple’s usual love-fest.
Not long after, Fox deletes her Instagram account altogether. Speculation is rife that Machine Gun Kelly had cheated on the actress, given Beyonce’s Lemonade album focused on infidelity.
Fox then returns to Instagram towards the end of February with just one post — a statement shutting down infidelity rumors that stresses “there has been no third party interference in this relationship of any kind.”
Paparazzi photos are then published showing Megan Fox and Machine Gun Kelly walking out of a building that has a marriage counseling service within it, further fueling speculation that their relationship is on rocky ground. Reports also fly that Fox has removed her engagement ring.
March 2023
Megan Fox makes her first appearance after the Instagram drama at the Vanity Fair Oscars Party, debuting fresh red hair and arriving without her engagement ring on.
Posing with various friends at the event, the absence of Machine Gun Kelly isn’t as suspicious as it seems — the musician had a conflicting performance slated for the same night.
Entertainment Tonight reports via a source that “they have a lot to work out before they can think about moving forward together as partners. MGK really loves Megan, and he is hopeful that they can get to a better place and be happy together. He knows he is going to have to go above and beyond to reconcile things with her.”
