The latest shtick from Machine Gun Kelly and Megan Fox involves a painstakingly designed engagement ring—emphasis on pain.
As MGK, born Colson Baker, told Vogue, the teardrop emerald ring he proposed to Fox with under a banyan tree in Puerto Rico was designed to have a thorny consequence should she remove it from her finger. In his own words …
"It’s a thoroughbred Colombian emerald, with no treatment. It was just carved into the teardrop, straight out of the mine. And the diamond was directly from [jeweler Stephen Webster]. The concept is that the ring can come apart to make two rings. 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!"
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Judging from their accoutrement preferences (and various other components of their relationship that they've publicly admitted to), it's no wonder that Baker and Fox have been branded as today's resident Edgy Couple throughout their courtship and now engagement.
After all, doesn't every generation have its own Megan Fox and Machine Gun Kelly? The two, knowingly or otherwise, adhere to a long Hollywood tradition of strange—and occasionally borderline grotesque—couplings. The Y2Ks saw Angelina Jolie and Billy Bob Thornton wear each other's blood in vials around their necks. The '90s received Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson's tumultuous romance with both trepidation and salacious curiosity. Even the '80s bore witness to the come-up of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, with their nude Rolling Stone cover and, years earlier, their bed-in protests.
But how edgy is edgy these days, anyway?
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Megan Fox and Machine Gun Kelly appear at an event chained together by their pinky nails. (Photo: Jerritt Clark/Getty Images)
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Taking a cue from their fashion sensibilities, Fox and Baker certainly have flair, with the actress's many sultry, skin-clinging dresses and the musician's penchant for silver facial jewelry. But does a celebrity appearance in which a woman is in a sheer dress and a man is in a suit (even if it is sequined) really toe the line of "cutting edge" by today's standards? And is it enough to talk about smelling like weed to the press or to wear your girlfriend's face on a T-shirt on The Tonight Show to be perceived by the hordes of Twitter denizens as the avant-garde couple of the 2020s?
Of course, Fox and Baker never claimed to the world to be anything other than in love. Setting aside the thorned rings and chained manicures and naked dresses, what Baker and Fox really seem to have is a genuine—and, yes, maybe even conventional—love story.
This article originally appeared in Harper's BAZAAR US