Machine Gun Kelly detailed his new album Mainstream Sellout today, listing the album’s features and sharing its artwork. After Rolling Stone noted that its prominent use of tomatoes seemed similar to the use of persimmons on the cover of Japanese Breakfast’s Jubilee (shot by photographer Peter Ash Lee), Michelle Zauner jokingly tweeted that this is “2022’s feud of the year.” Zauner jumped on the phone to discuss how she doesn’t think Machine Gun Kelly infringed on her creative territory.
“I don’t actually think it looks anything like my album cover at all,” she said, “but I think it’s very funny that Rolling Stone put up an article about it just because there’s a circular fruit in the foreground. I mean his is people throwing tomatoes at him, and mine is persimmons peacefully hanging around me, so I think they’re very different concepts.”
Addressing the pink color of the tomatoes on the Mainstream Sellout, she said, “Yeah, it’s a very contemporary Avril aesthetic. Which, as much as I stan Avril, is an aesthetic I don’t really embrace for myself.”
She noted that she has no beef with Machine Gun Kelly, but is definitely amused by the idea that she would. “I’ve never met Machine Gun Kelly. He seems like a fine person,” she said. “I can’t imagine having rock beef with anyone, but if I had to choose, it would probably be Machine Gun Kelly.”
“I’m honored to have a celebrity feud published in Rolling Stone today; it was not something I had anticipated. My manager actually was like, ‘I think you should lean into this,’” Zauner said, laughing. She added, “I’m excited to see what clickbait you come up with. ‘Japanese Breakfast Slams Machine Gun Kelly!’”
Machine Gun Kelly offered a response to Zauner on Twitter: “so should we beef over tomato’s or…should i thank them for introducing me to your album, because i just listened and i really like it.” It was the only natural conclusion for this non-beef—that Megan Fox’s significant other would discover and enjoy Jubilee.
Mainstream Sellout—which features Lil Wayne, Young Thug, Gunna, and Pete Davidson—is out March 25. Japanese Breakfast is nominated for Best New Artist and Best Alternative Music Album this year at the 2022 Grammys.
Read about Jubilee and Zauner’s book Crying at H Mart in Pitchfork’s 2021 feature “Japanese Breakfast Is Working the Pain Away.”
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This article was originally published on March 14 at 6:57 p.m. Eastern. It was last updated on March 15 at 12:00 a.m. Eastern.
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