Machine Gun Kelly appears to be the latest celebrity going viral for a cringeworthy Formula 1 interview.
The rocker made headlines over the weekend after a video surfaced of him trolling Sky Sports’ Martin Brundle — who is no stranger to awkward conversations with US A-listers on the grid walk — at the Formula 1 Brazilian Grand Prix in São Paulo, Brazil.
During the exchange on the grid, Brundle asked Kelly — whose real name is Colson Baker — to speak about what is going on “in [his] career at the moment.”
After Brundle had to repeat himself due to the loud drumming of the race cars, Kelly responded, “I don’t think about my career. I don’t think about it.”
“Well, good luck with it, whatever you do,” Brundle said in response.
Switching gears, the former race car driver then asked Kelly for his thoughts on F1 racing.
“It’s loud, your life’s on the line … that’s exciting,” Kelly said, before recalling a “nice” moment at the music studio “the other week” when he came across driver Lewis Hamilton “in the other studio.”
Changing the subject, Kelly asked Brundle, “What do you think about my business?”
“We love your business,” he responded. “There’s always been a great synergy between the music business and the motor racing business somehow.”
Kelly, seemingly trolling the British commentator, then asked Brundle, “Can you give me your best air guitar?”
“Uh, no. I can’t. I learned the piano once…,” Brundle explained as he keyed the air.
The “Twin Flame” artist, 33, then excitedly insisted the two should do an “air piano and air guitar collaboration right now.”
Quickly counting down from three, Kelly broke out his imaginary guitar while Brundle took a step back from Kelly and said, “No, there’s millions [watching]. You do it.”
“I can’t do it, I can’t do it,” Brundle said before saying, “I probably need to get on, but uh, because, we’ve got some people to see.”
Kelly — who was at the racing event alongside fiancée Megan Fox — then shot the camera a thumbs down before turning to walk away.
“Something tells me I won’t be on his Christmas card list,” Brundle joked.
“My anxiety has won,” the “Forget Me Too” artist later expressed via X, formerly Twitter, adding that he “hate[s] being in public.”
While he didn’t specifically mention Brundle or F1 in his posts, fans speculated he was referring to the awkward discussion, given the timing of the tweets.
Reps for Kelly did not immediately respond to Pvnew’s request for comment.
Fans took to social media to call out Kelly’s seemingly uncomfortable moment with the British commentator, including one user who wrote via X that it was “possibly one of the most awkward interviews at F1.”
“That Brundle interview with MGK was diabolical. I’m still cringing,” a second user tweeted.
After reading the disparaging comments, Kelly took to X again to defend himself.
“My vibe is ‘the worst’ how? because someone put a microphone in my face essentially forcing me to do a random interview when i was just trying to enjoy an event?” he wrote, adding, “because car engines were so loud i couldnt hear him? please tell me more about why im the worst.”
As for Brundle, the interviewer later made light of the situation in a post to X, joking that his interview with Kelly and a similarly awkward 2021 interview with Megan Thee Stallion was his “claim to fame.”
“I hope they didn’t find me too weird,” Brundle quipped.
Brundle’s interview with the “Body” rapper was equally as strange when the interviewer ran up to Stallion and requested she perform a “rap” on the spot about Formula 1.
“I have no rap today, I’m sorry,” Stallion said with a laugh before her security team stepped in to tell Brundle he couldn’t speak to the Grammy-winning rapper.
“I can do that, ’cause I did,” he said to a member of Stallion’s crew.
The sports commentator’s uncomfortable run-ins with celebrities on the racetrack actually made such an impression on the F1 community that officials made changes to broadcasting rules to accommodate Brundle.
In November 2021, Brundle announced that there were “new rules introduced.”
“…any celebrities on the grid must not have bodyguards any longer,” Brundle wrote in a social media post, per the UK Sun.
“It must be the ‘Brundle clause’, and they’re obliged to talk to me,” he continued. “I sort of like it if they ignore me, to be honest.”
Brundle then added that he likes to “call out” the celebrities who he believes are “just using the grid.”
“They don’t really have a passion.”
