- Machine Gun Kelly has announced he ‘hasn’t drank since last August’ in a candid new interview
- The singer and rapper credited his actor girlfriend Megan Fox, and 14-year-old daughter Casie, for helping him to get sober
- Here are 10 other celebrities who, like MGK, ditched drugs and alcohol
He was once a wild child.
But now Machine Gun Kelly has revealed he has been sober for a whole year, since he quietly entered a rehab facility in July 2023.
The rapper and singer, 34 – whose real name is Colson Baker – opened up about his experience, and thanked his girlfriend Megan Fox, 38, for helping him to stay “completely sober from everything”.
In an interview with the Dumb Blonde podcast on August 5, MGK revealed “I don’t drink anymore. I haven’t drank since last August”.
“I didn’t tell anybody outside of the [people] closest to me. That was my first time I ever went to rehab,” he said. “They just gave me so many ways to operate the body, show where this anger is coming from, and methods to quell it.
“I continue to embrace that this journey is gonna be hard for me, but I accept it and forgive myself. I’m also really hard on myself, very self-deprecating.”
MGK continued, “Megan has for sure been extremely helpful in dealing with the kind of psychological withdrawals that come with [sobriety]. I love that I’m clear when I look at the person I love.
“I’m really happy that I’m clear when my daughter [Casie, aged 14] and I are having our conversations and I’m coming from a place of being centered and holding space for what a child needs from their parent, which is patience and advice.”
While his efforts and candid words are admirable, MGK is also in good company when it comes to practicing sobriety.
Pubity.com takes a look at 10 other celebrities who have chosen to give up drugs and alcohol…
Kit Harrington
After making his name on Game of Thrones, Kit Harrington candidly discussed his issues with alcohol and addiction, both while filming the TV show and after it wrapped.
“I went through some pretty horrible stuff,” the actor, 37, explained, referencing his periods of depression. “Things that have happened to me since Thrones ended, and that were happening during Thrones, were of a pretty traumatic nature and they did include alcohol. You get to a place where you feel like you are a bad person, you feel like you are a shameful person. And you feel that there’s no way out, that’s just who you are.”
However, Harrington did change, and added that, alongside going to rehab, changing his overall mindset was helpful in his recovery.
“Getting sober is the process of going, ‘No, I can change’,” Harrington revealed. “One of my favorite things I learnt recently is that the expression ‘a leopard doesn’t change its spots’ is completely false: a leopard actually does change its spots.
“It really helped – that was something I kind of clung to; the idea that I could make this huge fundamental change in who I was and how I went about my life.”
He added, “I have a child and my relationship is brilliant… I’m a very, very happy, content, sober man.”
Nicki Minaj
Nicki Minaj has been extremely open about being “sober and loving life”, after previously speaking about how substance abuse runs through her family, with her dad suffering with it.
“Once an addict, always an addict,” the singer and rapper, 41, told Vogue. “I feel like if you’ve ever experienced addiction to anything, which I have, you always have to think twice and three times about the choices that you make.”
Bradley Cooper
Bradley Cooper is another celebrity who turned his back on substances.
“I don’t drink or do drugs anymore,” the 49-year-old told The Hollywood Reporter. “I realized I wasn’t going to live up to my potential, and that scared the hell out of me. I thought, ‘Wow, I’m actually gonna ruin my life. I’m really gonna ruin it.'”
Eva Mendes
For Eva Mendes, rehabilitation centers get a bad rap – and the actor, 50, is passionate about not putting a “negative twist” on reaching out to one for help, after she previously checked herself into a facility.
“The other day I was reading an article. I don’t even remember who the actress was, but she’s been around for a long time. She said something like, ‘I’m proud that I’ve had a whole career without making it to rehab.’ That’s such a negative twist on it,” she said.
“I’m proud of people who have the determination and the fearlessness to actually go and face their demons and get better. This is a life or death situation. I’m not a spokesperson, but I want to support people for their decisions when they do go in and get help.”
Daniel Radcliffe
Former child star Daniel Radcliffe made the decision to quit drinking in 2010 – not long before the final Harry Potter film was released.
“It was something I thought to make myself interesting and to make myself enjoy my life,” Radcliffe, 35, revealed. “I did become reliant on [alcohol]. I think there’s a moment when you realize that something that is ultimately very destructive has crept into being a routine.
“That was the moment when I decided that the amount I was drinking had led me to become unhappy.”
Anne Hathaway
Anne Hathaway revealed why she made the personal decision to give up alcohol in an interview with Vanity Fair. “I knew deep down it wasn’t for me. And it just felt so extreme to have to say, ‘But none?’ But none. If you’re allergic to something or have an anaphylactic reaction to something, you don’t argue with it. So I stopped arguing with it.”
Hathaway, 41, continued, “My personal experience with it is that everything is better. For me, it was wallowing fuel. And I don’t like to wallow. The thing that I have faith in is that everybody else is going to have one or two drinks, and by the time everybody gets to two drinks, you’ll feel like you’ve had two drinks – but without the hangover.”
The actor had previously announced back in 2019 that she had quit drinking for 18 years – as she had become a mother to her son Jonathan, now eight, and later welcomed Jack, four.
“I quit drinking back in October, for 18 years,” she said. “I’m going to stop drinking while my son is in my house just because I don’t totally love the way I do it and he’s getting to an age where he really does need me all the time in the mornings.
“The time I have with him is really precious. And I do leave a lot for work and I found my time with him was getting impacted, not necessarily by the drinking, as I never went out of control around him.
“But I hate to say it – as you get older, the hangovers get really bad… I had to make a choice and I chose mornings. Isn’t that annoying? Isn’t that horrible? I’m really irritated by how well it’s going.”
Tom Holland
In May 2023, actor Tom Holland revealed he had been sober for a year – later opening up that the reason for his decision was that he was “definitely addicted to alcohol.”
“I didn’t one day wake up and say, ‘I’m giving up drinking’. I just – like many Brits – had had a very, very boozy December. Christmas time, I was on vacation, I was drinking a lot,” Holland, 28, explained. “I decided to just give up for January… and all I could think about was having a drink. It was all I could think about. I was waking up thinking about it, I was checking the clock… and it just really scared me.”
Following this, he decided to challenge himself to two months being alcohol-free.
“If I can do two months off, then I can prove to myself that I don’t have a problem,” he recalled – but admitted that after the two months, he was still “really struggling”.
Holland extended his goal to stay sober until June 6 – his birthday. But when the time came, Tom revealed that it was the “happiest” he’d “ever been” in his life and that he’s decided to keep his alcohol-free outlook up.
Cara Delevingne
Admitting that she “started drinking and partying” as a teenager to fill the “need to escape and change my reality”, Cara Delevingne has struggled with addiction issues in the past.
“I’ve had interventions of a sort, but I wasn’t ready [until after her 30th birthday blow out]. That’s the problem,” the model, 31, shared, when explaining how she decided to try therapy again, enter rehab and commit to a 12-step programme to build a life away from drugs and alcohol.
“I always thought that the work needs to be done when the times are bad, but actually the work needs to be done when they’re good. The work needs to be done consistently. It’s never going to be fixed or fully healed but I’m okay with that, and that’s the difference.”
Drew Barrymore
Drew Barrymore is one of Hollywood’s most candid celebrities – but only chose to share her decision to give up alcohol when she had already been sober for two years.
“When you are stuck in a pattern, or if you are going through things and you not only admit them out loud, but you force yourself to say, ‘I’m willing to make big changes’… I think we all think we’re very weak when we don’t make those changes [but when we do, that’s where the empowerment comes in],” she revealed.
The actor and chat show host, 49, added that she kept her sober journey a secret until it was one she’d built enough confidence on.
“I just want to figure this out and go about this with no profession, no public anything, and now it’s been long enough where I’m in a lifestyle that I know is really working on a high road for my little journey, and there’s so much peace finally being had where there were demons.”
Elle MacPherson
Now 60, Elle MacPherson has been sober for a whopping 20 years, after making the decision to give up booze when she hit 40.
The supermodel shared a snap of her blue and gold Alcoholics Anonymous tri-plate token – complete with ‘XX’ in the middle, which stands for 20 in Roman numerals – just before her big birthday.
Back in 2020, Elle opened up about her decision to go sober to mark a milestone birthday – her 40th.
“It’s funny, 40 is such an introspective year. I actually got sober when I was 40. I felt like I wanted to spend time in introspection,” she said.
