When it comes to tattoos, it’s easier to make a mistake than you think— and tattoo artists are tired of it. Things that begin as a cute idea quickly turn sour. From couple tattoos, misspelled foreign languages, and straight-up regrettable tattoo designs, there are many people walking around with permanent ink reminding them of their bad decisions. But none more so than celebrities.
Celebrities are photographed constantly and their lives are always on blast, so when one gets a bad tattoo it’s documented for the rest of eternity.
Ah, the beauty of the internet.
While laser removal is always an option, it’s not only expensive, but extremely painful. In early 2019, Rumer Willis, daughter of Bruce Willis and Demi Moore announced she started the laser process to get her tattoos removed. According to Rumer, her visible tattoos were “negatively affecting her ability to land acting gigs.”
Being typecast is rough, and just one of the few setbacks of bad ink. And it turns out, no matter how much we see other people mess up their tattoos we still go ahead and get awful ideas permanently imprinted on our bodies anyway.
So take these celebrities mistakes as a lesson— even if that foreign language looks really cool, the likelihood that it’s correct is extremely low.
We take a look at some of the worst celebrity tattoo fails and we’re warning you ahead of time, prepare to cringe.
Zoe Kravtiz
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It’s hard to find someone cooler than Zoe Kravits, but her tattoo fail proves that she’s human. Opting for a tattoo written in Arabic, Zoe got “let love rule” tattooed across her shoulder.
However like most foreign languages, the message got lost in translation.
It ended up reading “let the love the rule,” which is essentially gibberish. But in 2019, celebrity tattoo artist Dr. Woo shared a photo of some new ink Zoe got to cover up the mistake.
Liam Hemsworth
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Back in October 2012, Liam Hemsworth got a couple tattoo with then-fiance Miley Cyrus. They both got lines from President Theodore Roosevelt’s “Citizen in a Republic” speech.
But Hemsworth’s tattoo is missing a word.
The actual quote is, “If he fails, at least he fails while daring great.” Hemworth’s tattoo is missing the second “he,” so it reads, “If he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.” At least he… dared greatly?
Rihanna
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Rihanna has some of the freshest tattoos in the game, but she missed the mark with this one. Although she refuses to admit it.
In 2010, Rihanna stopped by a New York City tattoo parlor and left with some ink that confused the internet. The cursive tattoo was supposed to read “rebellious flower” which for Rihanna, we love, but turns out it could be wrong.
In French, adjectives usually follow nouns, which in turn made Rih Rih’s tattoo a mess.
But, she hopped online to clear everything up, saying “Rebelle fleur translates to rebel flower, NOT rebellious flower, its 2 nouns so in that case fleur does not HAVE to be first!” Okay?”
Zac Efron
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In 2011, when the acronym YOLO entered the collective consciousness, Zac Efron was inspired to memorialize the moment with a tattoo. But he didn’t realize the onslaught of cringy YOLO-related content that was about to follow.
“YOLO” was inescapable.
From The Lonely Island creating that song, to everyone screaming it before they did something decidedly silly, YOLO was everywhere. The acronym which stands for “you only live once” sure had a brief life on Zac Efron’s hand, and we hope he’s learned his lesson. He removed the tattoo in 2014.
Nicole Richie
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Nicole Richie has a slew of gorgeous tattoos, including her dainty angel wings on her back. But one tattoo that didn’t age as well is a word written across her wrist. At just 16-years-old, a young Richie got the word, “virgin” tattooed on her wrist but not for the reason you think.
Oh boy.
Richie’s zodiac sign, Virgo, is the Latin translation of “virgin” and was supposed to be a nod to her astrological placement, but instead veered into what she calls “embarrassing and desperate” territory.
Harry Styles
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The One Direction star honored his love for Australian band, Temper Trap by getting a lyric from their song, “Sweet Disposition” on his arm. How hard is it to copy a lyric verbatim, right? Styles got “won’t stop ’till we surrender” permanently inked on his arm, despite the fact that the lyrics are “won’t stop to surrender.”
A small yet embarrassing mistake.
Temper Trap told Pedestrian TV that they came face to face with Taylor Swift, Styles’ then-girlfriend backstage at a show where they shared the correct lyrics with her. Swift broke the bad news to him.
Britney Spears
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Britney’s gone through a lot in the public spotlight, so it’s no wonder this misspelled tattoo doesn’t get too much attention. She had a tattoo that was supposed to say “God” in Hebrew, as she was inspired by Kabbalah.
The word was misspelled.
Britney ended up getting the small neck tattoo removed, thank God.
Ariana Grande
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Ariana Grande has the formula to making a pop hit all figured out, but tattoos may not be her forte. At the start of 2019, the singer sought an artist to commemorate her single, “7 Rings” with a Japanese tattoo.
That’s when everything began to fall apart.
While she thought she was getting “7 Rings!” tattooed on the palm of her hand, it actually said “shichirin.”
“Shichirin translates to “Japanese barbeque grill.”
To make matters worse, she attempted to fix the tattoo after someone online pointed this out and it now read, “Japanese BBQ finger.” Dang, Ari, stick to English.
Ashley Greene
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Ashley Greene, known for her role in Twilight as Alice Cullen, has had a little trouble with apostrophes. Deciding on getting a simple adage dedicated to the rollercoaster that is life, Greene forgot her grammar at the door.
Punctuation matters.
The tattoo which is supposed to read “life’s a dance” is inked on her foot as “lifes a dance.” The lesson: get a proofreader.
David Beckham
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Even though David and Victoria Beckham just celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary, he found a way to mess up his tattoo dedicated to his wife. While most couple tattoos are a mistake because they usually signal a swift split, David actually just messed up the spelling.
Yes, he misspelled his own wife’s name.
To be fair, he got “Victoria” written in Sanskrit, and it translates to “Vihctoria.”
Pete Davidson
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Pete has gotten more coverups than we can count. In 2018, when Pete Davidson and Ariana Grande had their (very) brief engagement, Pete decided to get some tattoos dedicated to his then-fiancée.
A little bunny behind his ear was quickly covered up following their breakup.
And Pete’s tattoo artist had some choice words for the comedian. Tattoo artist, Jon Mesa told Page Six: “I told Pete, ‘Hey, dude, let’s just stop with the girlfriend tats until after [Grande’s] your wife… [But] I think that went in one ear and out the other.”
Cheryl Cole
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X Factor judge, Cheryl Cole has a mammoth tattoo that stretches from her back down to her upper thighs and the entirety of her booty. The tattoo reportedly took 55 hours and cost the equivalent of a car— roughly $17,000
That’s a lot of regret.
It’s garish, in your face, and the star has garnered a lot of criticism for the ink. And we can’t even imagine just how painful it would have been.
Jennifer Lawrence
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Jennifer Lawrence did the one thing parents fear everywhere— she got a tattoo to fit in with everyone else. The tattoo which she describes as symbolizing “watered down rebellion” isn’t only an oxymoron but turned out to look kind of silly too.
Don’t get a tattoo just because everyone else is getting them.
While hanging out with Liam Hemsworth’s family, J-Law got an H20 tattoo on her right hand. But she made a mistake by not writing the 2 in a subscript, that is higher than the H and the O.
Ed Sheeran
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Following Saoirse Ronan’s appearance in Ed Sheeran’s video for “Galway Girl,” the two decided to celebrate the moment with some ink. His tattoo reads, “Galway Grill” but there’s more to the story than just a plain old typo.
According to Saoirse, it was all planned.
“Ed got up on stage like two days after we did it and said I had made the mistake, and it makes me look illiterate,” she told James Corden on The Late Late Show. “I am just here to say that it was all planned because we thought it would be funny and edgy if we misspelled ‘girl,’ and made it ‘grill’ instead.”
Ben Affleck
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In 2015, a photo of Ben Affleck standing on the beach began to make the rounds on the internet. It was a shirtless photo, but that wasn’t the reason everyone was talking.
It was the giant tattoo of a phoenix seemingly rising from his butt that got Affleck in the news.
Everyone thought it was fake, or even for a role, but when he confirmed it was real years later we couldn’t believe it. In an interview with Vanity Fair, ex-wife Jennifer Garner joked:
“Bless his heart.”
She added, “a phoenix rising from the ashes. Am I the ashes in this scenario? I take umbrage. I refuse to be the ashes.”
Justin Bieber
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To honor his mom, Justin Bieber got the year of her birth tattooed on him in Roman Numerals— but he got it a little wrong. Even though Roman numerals are technically foreign, there are hard and fast rules to getting these right.
Sadly, Biebs didn’t.
He got “I IX VII V” tattooed on him when the correct format is “MCMLXXV.” A Google search saves lives.
Megan Fox
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Is paraphrasing Shakespeare a faux pas? Megan Fox’s iconic shoulder blade tattoo is definitely beautiful but turns out it’s a little remix on a Shakespeare quote.
The tattoo reads, “We will all laugh at gilded butterflies”
While the real quote from Shakespeare’s King Lear is “so we’ll live, and pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh at gilded butterflies.” Poorly paraphrased or creative expression?
T-Pain
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This one is more silly than anything. Back in 2011, the rapper called that Facebook would be on the decline, but that didn’t stop him from getting this tattoo.
“You don’t have to Like me.”
“I think this one’s pretty sweet, unless Facebook shuts down soon,” he captioned the image when he unveiled the tattoo. At least he’s got a good sense of humor about it.
Hayden Panettiere
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At a film premiere in New York in 2011, the Nashville star Hayden Panettiere was happy to show off her new back tattoo but that all changed when others realized her mistake.
The tattoo was meant to say, “vivere senza rimipianti.”
This tranlsates to “live without regrets,” in Italian. However, the last word ended up being misspelled and led to Panettiere rushing for laser removal.
Jessie J
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The “Nobody’s Perfect” singer really proved her song true when she revealed her embarrassing tattoo to Graham Norton on his show in 2015.
Proofreading is important, y’all.
The singer’s tattoo is supposed to read “Don’t lose who you are in the blur of a star,” but instead of “lose,” it says “loose.”
“It’s the reason I always wear high-waisted stuff.”
I’m not going to put a spelling mistake that close to a camera. I’m going to get it covered and I’m not having any more tattoos,” Jessie J said.
