Featured Image Credit: Jason Kempin/Getty Images
Topics: Machine Gun Kelly, New Zealand
Thomas Bamford
Topics: Machine Gun Kelly, New Zealand
Bad boy rapper Machine Gun Kelly has revealed why he can't get TSA PreCheck, and it all comes down to something that happened in New Zealand years ago.
We've all suffered long lines at airport security, but many Americans can bypass that with TSA PreCheck, the US Government's trusted traveller programme that allows approved passengers to skip the regular queues.
Members can keep their shoes on, laptops in their bags and breeze through a dedicated fast track lane, making it one of the most coveted perks for frequent fliers.
To qualify, applicants go through a background check, but this is exactly where MGK's past comes back to bite him.
While TSA PreCheck can help things run smoothly at the airport, Machine Gun Kelly's (MGK) can't take part in the fun due to his wild past still haunting him at airport security.
Advert
It's all because of a drug bust in New Zealand that's followed him around like a bad smell ever since.
On the Take Flight Podcast on April 22, MGK explained: "I got caught with cocaine on the way back from New Zealand last time I was out here."
The bust left him with a level one narcotics possession on his record.
Obviously any run in with the law is seriously embarrassing, but the booking genuinely had hugely negative effects on his career.
The 36-year-old, real name Colson Baker, claims the charge got him kicked out of Australia for eight years, because he thought the statute of limitations ran for a decade.
And the airport dramas are still ongoing.
"I still don't get [TSA] Pre Check or Global Entry or any of that fast stuff in the airport, I'm still stuck in the lines like normal."
It's quite funny to imagine the man who sells out arenas regularly and dated Megan Fox standing in the same snaking queues as the rest of us.
To be fair to him, he's not the same man as the guy who got caught at an airport anymore. He's spoken openly about getting sober, revealing on the Dumb Blonde Podcast in 2024 that he'd gone to rehab after wrapping a European tour.
He said: "I went to rehab right when we got off the European tour last year.
"That was the first time I ever went to rehab, and man they just gave me so many ways to operate the body."
He credited his daughter Casie, 16, who he shares with ex Emma Cannon, as one of his biggest motivations for turning things around, saying it cut him deep when she told him she could tell he was high.
He added: "That is like the ultimate sign of just disappointment in yourself."
MGK and Megan Fox also welcomed their daughter Saga Blade last year, so there's plenty keeping him on the straight and narrow these days.
Still waiting on the PreCheck though.