Pop Spotlight

Megan Fox and Machine Gun Kelly are not a controversy-shy couple. The two regularly make headlines for their emo-inspired photo shoots, double dates with Kourtney Kardashian and Travis Barker, and insane quotes during interviews (remember “I am weed”?) So Kelly and Fox are likely pleased as punch about the fact that they’re currently going viral on the right for an interview Fox gave about the two participating in a blood drinking ritual.

In the interview in question for the cover of Glamour UK, Fox spoke at length about, among other things, parenting, the pressures of being a sex symbol, and leading the charge of the #MeToo movement with her very public criticism of director Michael Bay. Yet the primary focus of those who read the interview was this snippet, which was prompted by an Instagram Fox posted earlier this year discussing blood-drinking in the context of their engagement. From Glamour UK:

I have to clarify: “Um, so did you actually drink each other’s blood?”

“Yeah. So, I guess to drink each other’s blood might mislead people or people are imagining us with goblets and we’re like Game of Thrones, drinking each other’s blood,” she responds, laughing. “It’s just a few drops, but yes, we do consume each other’s blood on occasion for ritual purposes only.

“I’m much more controlled. I read tarot cards and I’m into astrology and I’m doing all these metaphysical practices and meditations. And I do rituals on new moons and full moons, and all these things. And so, when I do it, it’s a passage or it is used for a reason. And it is controlled where it’s like, ‘Let’s shed a few drops of blood and each drink it.’ He’s much more haphazard and hectic and chaotic, where he’s willing to just cut his chest open with broken glass and be like, ‘Take my soul,’” she says, dramatically mimicking her beloved’s alleged chest-bearing, chest-slashing passion.

“And that actually happens?” I ask wide-eyed, unsure if she is joking.

“It doesn’t not happen,” she responds, laughing. “Let me tell you. Maybe not exactly like that, but a version of that has happened many times.”

Fox’s quote, predictably, went viral, with many on social media gently mocking the couple for their emo pretensions (or, as Don’t Let This Flop cohost Brittany Spanos put it on this week’s episode of Rolling Stone‘s internet culture podcast, for the two being “Hot Topic-core.”) One sector of the internet that was considerably less amused, however, was the far right, with many posting on Telegram outraged by what they referred to as the couple’s “Satanic blood rituals” and channels like OAN devoting airtime to the two. “Out in the open, they tell you what they do, that they practice their rituals, and they literally have the ability to manipulate the minds of an entire generation,” said one outraged pundit accusing the couple of practicing Satanism.

Whether Fox and Kelly are practicing blood drinking rituals because they want to “manipulate the minds of an entire generation” of impressionable youngsters or whether it’s just because they read too much vampire fan fic as teenagers is certainly up for debate. What isn’t up for debate, however, is that with the discourse over whether Disney is grooming youngsters cooling down, the right is willing to take its moral panics wherever it can find it.

Co-hosts Spanos and Ej Dickson discuss Fox and Kelly’s blood-drinking rites on this week’s episode of Don’t Let This Flop, Rolling Stone‘s podcast on internet culture, as well as such other topics as the Lea Michele renaissance, the Johnny Depp/Amber Heard defamation trial, and himbos who crush watermelon between their thighs.

DLTF is released Wednesdays on all audio streaming platforms, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Stitcher, and more.