Machine Gun Kelly’s Instagram Story Showing Leeches On His Body Was A Lot

Machine Gun Kelly has never seemed to be the squeamish sort. The musician has tattoos all over his body, including one that looks like a neck slice, and he once shared gruesome photos of his cut-up face after he smashed a champagne glass on it. And let’s not forget that he and fiancée Megan Fox have been known to “consume each other’s blood on occasion for ritual purposes only,” as she explained in April’s Glamour UK. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that some blood-sucking worms are nothing for him.

Kelly apparently decided to try out some form of leech therapy, as he showed in one of his Instagram stories from Friday, Dec. 16. The Good Mourning star and co-director showed a video of himself with several leeches on his inked-up stomach, labeling them “my best friends.” For viewers like, well, me, it was a lot. Or maybe I should say too much. He didn’t shy away from really zooming in on the slimy, parasitic creatures, and the extreme close-up showed at least four, half-piled on each other. Trigger warning: There’s a photo below. (Honestly, that’s as far away from the leeches as he had the camera; it got much, much closer in his story.)

Last chance to look away. Scroll by fast if you don’t want to see!

Kelly didn’t explain his… gathering with his “friends.” Leeches do have medical applications, though, as gross as it may sound. They have been used for thousands of years to treat skin diseases, nervous system abnormalities, infections, and even dental problems, per Healthline. Their saliva contains peptides and proteins that can improve circulation, and studies suggest there are anti-inflammatory and anesthetic properties, too. In leech therapy, the organisms feed for about 20 to 45 minutes, take a fairly small amount of blood — about 15 milliliters — each, and their bites don’t leave scars behind. It doesn’t sound all that bad, if you can get past the idea of what’s happening.

Meanwhile, there is also a history of leeches being used in more mystical ways. One belief has been that leeches may cleanse your soul of an evil spirit. As much as that also seems like something Kelly could be into, he did not specify why he had his creepy-crawly friends on him.

MGK and Fox have been known to participate in unique experiences and rituals (see the aforementioned blood-drinking). For example, she told Jimmy Kimmel Live guest host Arsenio Hall in July 2021 about their trip into the jungle in Costa Rica to do ayahuasca. Her description of the three-day affair being “incredibly intense” seemed like an understatement. After a “vomitivo” in which everyone drank lemongrass tea to the point of puking to begin, she “went to hell for eternity” on the second night, she recounted. Leeches actually sound pretty tame in comparison to that.