Machine Gun Kelly talks about the meaning of his huge blackout tattoo that spans his torso and both arms, covering up his older tattoo.

At a recent appearance on Game worth millions of dollarsMGK explained the metamorphosis-like effect of the tattoo.

“I have a new body, I literally have a new body,” he told hosts Gillie and Wallo. “I covered everything on my arms and my body. I left windows in it, just like there are windows in my old job, but I’m a new person, so the evolution has taken me from a caterpillar to a butterfly.”

He went on to explain in detail why he used “windows” to show traces of his old tattoos.

“I think fans don’t appreciate it when an artist turns their back on what made them fall in love with you in the first place,” MGK added. “Even though I may not have as much resonance with older work that I’ve done, I still find it again and again. So I never want to walk away from it.”

In addition, Machine Gun Kelly said that he did not want to completely get rid of the image of the “tall, skinny, tattooed white boy”.

“I didn’t necessarily want to wipe everything out, like I was running away from it,” he said. “I just put on some armor.”

Machine Gun Kelly first showed off the tattoo in February, in conjunction with the release of his single “Don’t Let Me Go.” When he posted the first picture of the tattoo, he wrote, “For spiritual purposes only.”

In April, he released a video documenting the grueling process, which he described as “the most painful shit I’ve ever experienced in my life.”

Machine Gun Kelly recently reached a major milestone on his sobriety journey. Earlier this month, he celebrated one year of sobriety since quitting addictive substances such as alcohol, cocaine and heroin.