Coverups, Mistakes And More: 20 Celebrity Tattoo Stories

Angelina Jolie, in the context of “tattoo,” is characterized by the mosaic of dark green on her back.

The Mr and Mrs Smith alum is said to have rounded this particular grouping–Buddhist blessings for peace, love, and prosperity–off in 2016 during a visit to Thailand.

On the left arm, she sports the quote: “A prayer for the wild at heart, kept in cages” by American playwright, Tennessee Williams.

“I don’t think I know one person who I think can be completely who they are every second of the day, who feels completely free,” she justified the inkwork to Rolling Stone in 1999.

“So it's kind of a prayer for everybody to find their happiness, to break out.”

But it’s not all depth and kumbaya with the SALT actress.

Just level with her belt buckle resides the rather dark declaration: “What nourishes me also destroys me,” next to a giant cross covering a dragon tattoo she acquired in Amsterdam before she married Jonny Lee Miller in 1996.

On her left bicep is the inscription of a historic date (May 13, 1940) when Winston Churchill said: “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat,”—in Roman numerals.

Splayed across her lower back is a tattoo of a 12-inch Bengal tiger. This, she got to celebrate her Cambodian citizenship, and reports indicate that it was crafted with a manual needle in line with the traditional Thai style.

On Jolie’s left shoulder, she has the coordinates of her six children’s birthplaces, along with that of her dramatically-divorced husband, Brad Pitt.

Also among the 13 designs are the words “know your rights” in Gothic lettering on her neckline.

In the grand Hollywood tattoo lexicon, Jolie’s array is admittedly less a stinging metaphor and more lived experience. 

Refreshing, really, in a scene where someone will slap a half-peeled onion on their ankle and attribute it to “my adopted dog.”

Game of Thrones actress Lena Headey is a walking gallery of diverse designs, boasting 13 tattoos on her arms, feet, back, wrists, and knuckles.

As People observed in 2020, Headey, now 52, seems as hooked on tattoos as her GoT character was on power. 

She agrees:

“I always want more. It’s a terrible thing,” she confessed in 2020. “It’s something you can’t run from. You have to sit and find a way through [the sting of the tattoo gun]. I find a real calm, a real peace to it.”

Her collection includes two pentagrams inked into the crooks of her arms, a dragonfly on her left foot, an open birdcage, her son’s name and surname on her wrist, and a massive depiction of the Hindu god Ganesha across her back.

“I’ll be outside a tattoo shop and hear the needle and think, ‘I could just get a little one that nobody would see …’” Headey admitted of her spiraling fixation.

The recently wedded Selena Gomez may be more inked than you think. Men’s lifestyle outlet Net Luxury claims that the actress has at least 17 tattoos.

One of them, an arrow that sits below her thumb, she showed off with her friend Julia Michaels. Another is a musical note in the crook of her right arm.

She has the Roman numerals LXXVI on the nape of her neck, and a cross on her collarbones, along with the word “RARE” behind her right ear, which may or may not have something to do with her namesake makeup brand.

Her right hip she dedicated to religion with a pair of praying hands, a rosary, and the line: “God Who Strengthens Me”.

The actress sports a large pink rose on her back and the phrase “Love Yourself First,” perhaps a lesson from her long sensationalized break-up with Justin Bieber, whom she claimed did not care for her when needed most, along with instances of “jealousy, infidelity, and difficulties related to each of their careers.”

Scarlet Johansson is said to sport eight high-definition ink pieces, including a rose stem creeping up her back. 

Next to it, the picturesque depiction of a lamb, interlocking circles on her ankle, a bracelet with Thor’s hammer on her right hand, and an Avengers icon on her right bicep.

This little marking she got from celebrity tattoo artist Josh Lord, with five other actors from the Avengers franchise.

Robert Downey Jr. offered some insights into the decision when he told Entertainment Weekly:  
“It was Johansson’s idea.”

“She and [Christopher Robert] Evans did it in New York. Then, their New York guy, Josh Lord, who is amazing, flew out to Los Angeles. He did me, did [Jeremy Lee] Renner, and then we just bullied [Chris] Hemsworth into doing it.”

Another tattoo spotted on Johansson is an owl in flight on the right side of her ribcage, along with a horseshoe and the words “Luck You” next to it.

She also has a sunrise on her left arm.

She told an outlet that she had the ink for a while and described it as something that makes her happy. Like with her other pieces, she refused to divulge its meaning.

“Some things have to remain private,” she declared.

Whoopi Goldberg created a stir at the 2025 Academy Awards with what was reported to be a rare show of skin.

Her Christian Siriano number, which was described as “liquid”, left her shoulders exposed, revealing a massive dragon tattoo.

While awed by the sighting, celeb watchers noted that it was not the first time she had picked the fashion house and the off-the-shoulder style.

So then how, pray tell, was it the first time we saw the tattoo?

Multi-hyphenate Demi Lovato’s body is a collage of her ideals.

The words love, fear, free, and survivor appear across her skin, along with the sentences “Love will live forever in the infinite universe” and “Buddy was here,” in memoriam of her beloved pooch.

Then, there are the Roman numerals down the left of her ribcage, which speak to her past, and as a testimony to her Christian faith, she has “Let go & Let God” inscribed.

As the saying goes, “put alpha first.” Lovato has a small testimony to this ideal with the word “me” on her wedding finger.

On her left shoulder blade, she sports the line “Now I'm a Warrior,” along with “faith” below her right elbow.
After she completed her stint in rehab in 2011, the actress got the words “stay” and “strong” across her wrists.

On the outer part of her left hand is “III,” supposedly commemorating her father’s passing in 2013.

We’re not done; she has pictures too.

A life-like spider sits on the right side of her scalp, spreading its long appendages; a dream catcher rests on the same side of her ribcage; and a set of lips appears below her left hand. 

On that same index finger, she sports a rose, which is said to symbolize her battles with substances and staying sober.

On the same limb, she has a flock of swallows and a cross on her hand, along with an outline of Africa that no one seems to know the significance of.

As if to complete the theme, Lovato’s got a lion’s head on the back of that same hand.

Perhaps the most detailed piece on the actress is on her back just below her neck—a depiction of three doves carrying a sleeping woman, as a testament to “rebirth,” she says.

At 78, acting legend Susan Sarandon is not exactly where most Gen Z-ers would go looking for tattoo inspiration. 

But she’s been quietly building a collection that even [intense] ink aficionados struggle to decode.

Back in 2017, at age 72, Sarandon was featured in Inked Magazine showing off a fresh design tucked discreetly on the inside of her left arm: One so cryptic that fans and tattoo sleuths still haven’t figured it out. 

Two years later, she returned to the studio for a piece that was no easier to decode.

“This is the genius who designed my last two tattoos,” she said of its author, a New York celebrity tattoo artist, Joshua Lord.

Along with the delicate “bracelets” encircling her wrists, these little markings pale in comparison to her more conspicuous work: A 10-inch chain running from the nape of her neck down her spine.

As for why she continues to add to her canvas, Sarandon keeps it simple:

“I’ve only got my body for a few more years anyway.”

Singer Ed Sheeran, known for his genre-blending sounds, has exploited his pale skin to the maximum when it comes to tattoos.

His upper torso is a mosaic of nearly every color available to the artist, from the tiger-orange mane of the lion in the center of his chest to the metallic-blue wings on either side of it.

Down his arms, the print-like cartoon pixel designs depict puzzle pieces and paw prints, while down his torso are depictions of a castle wall, a keyhole, a blossoming tree, and a ghost.

But the internet is not entirely impressed.

Critical netizens say Sheeran’s artist should be arrested and charged with criminal negligence. 

Others feel that Sheeran is solely responsible for his body and that it “looks like he’s been left unsupervised with a pack of felt tip pens and some toddlers.”

But Sheeran is not fazed.

“People say when they see my tattoos that I look like a melted crayon, so that’s interesting. I guess this is just my eight year-old self coming out,” he said in a 2017 interview.

It’s no surprise that the legendary Man U footballer would become a feature in Men’s Health Magazine. 
 
It was not because he was overly healthy, but rather for his whopping sixty-plus permanent skin inscriptions.

The man gives meaning to the term sleeve in tattooing. He portrays imagery with impeccable detail and fading, slogans and scripts in various languages, and then, of course, the names of his offspring, Brooklyn, Romeo, and Cruz.

He has also allocated skin to his parents, a saying from Confucius, and an American First Nation chief.

And for someone who has called the jinx by having his significant other’s name (Victoria) inked onto their body, he and the former Spice Girls singer have prevailed through thick and thin.

He also has tributes to his football jersey numbers with the inscription “723”.

In 2023, two years after the initial Men’s Health feature, People reported that the then 48-year-old had 88 tattoos.

When asked for a reason, he simply said: “I just like them.”

Breaking Bad is good; ask the 10.3 million viewers who tuned in for the show’s finale.

Actor Bryan Cranston thinks so too; ask the “Br-Ba” symbol on the inside of his finger which not only represents bromine and barium, but is also the logo for the show.

On a 2024 installment of Late Night With Seth Meyers, Cranston recalled how it happened. 

“[On] the last day of production, 11 years ago, I got a tattoo on my hand.”

Apparently, a party was thrown to mark the end of production, and a tattoo artist was invited.

“Invited,” they say, as if said tattoo artist was merely one of the guests, which is unlikely given the fact that they had the tools of their trade with them.

A boozy party, an emotional cast that are unlikely to see each other again, and a tattoo artist.

What could possibly go wrong?

And so Cranston and co-star Paul Aaron got matching tattoos, per ET Online. 

This was Cranston’s first. We do not know if he started building a collection.

The former One Direction singer has so many tattoos that we won’t even pretend to list them all. 

When he takes off his shirt, it’s less “body art” and more lost and found notice board—a chaotic mosaic of random stamps fighting for space.

Naturally, he insists each one is meaningful. Sure. If two birds on either side of his chest and a giant butterfly on his stomach scream deep symbolism to you, who are we to argue? 

On his left bicep, he doubled down with two hearts; one a simple outline, the other looking like it belongs in a medical textbook.

Then, there’s the sketch of a 16th-century ship, three nails, and a Bible tossed in for good measure (maybe hinting at some religious flair).

Cosmopolitan once attempted the impossible and tried cataloging his ink. Their findings? The Google symbol (because why not), James Bond’s gambler’s mantra “17 Black,” his parents’ birthdates, and the inspirational quote “you booze, you lose.”

Somewhere in the mess, you’ll also find ferns, clasped hands, a rose, a guitar, and “Jackson,” – a tribute to his godson – all drowning in the ink storm.

“Anyone who says tattoos don’t hurt is a liar!” he declared back in 2012, according to Press Party. 

Clearly, pain hasn’t slowed his dependency on the needle.

Tom Holland has kept his tattoos minimal, reserving ink for two things close to his heart: His career-defining role as Spider-Man and his fiancée, Zendaya.

Holland first stepped into the Spider suit in 2016, and a year later, he celebrated the moment with an arachnid tattoo on the instep of his foot.

“I always wanted to get that Spider-Man symbol on the bottom of my foot, but I just never thought I would get it done,” Holland told ABC 10’s Mark Allen at the time.
 
The process wasn’t painless. “It hurt so much,” he admitted. And because tattoos on the sole fade quickly, he had to get it redone twice. “The third time he really sort of had to drive it home,” Holland said.

The ink suggests that Holland plans to be a Spider-Man lifer: He’s expected to reprise the role in two upcoming 2026 installments.

Spider-Man isn’t the only thing etched into his skin. On November 27, 2024, just before Holland and Zendaya went public with their engagement, they got complimenting tattoos: He a “Z,” she a “T.”

Since then, paparazzi have spotted her tribute on her ribcage, but Holland’s marking is yet to be seen. 

It begs the questions: Where is it? Did he even get one? Or is it hidden as cleverly as the spider under his foot?

As one Facebook commenter asked when the news broke: “Is the tattoo in the room with us?”

The sneak peeks offered by the Grey’s Anatomy star into his ink collection are few and far between.

In August 2022, the multimedia entertainment outlet, Just Jared, posted images of the star in shorts scouting California locations for what was then described only as a “new project.”

The actor drew attention two years prior for a grainy picture of his back uploaded to Instagram, showcasing a newly inked pair of angel’s wings.

The picture has since been removed.

Actress and producer Mena Suvari shot to fame in 1999 thanks to American Beauty and American Pie.

Unlike some celebs who treat their bodies like scrapbook projects (looking at you, Harry Styles), Suvari keeps things minimal: just two known tattoos.

But don’t mistake the lack of quantity for subtlety.

One of those two is a full statement piece; a roaring male lion stretching from her lower neck down her back, paired with the phrase “word, sound, power,” which she debuted in 2008.

Her second tattoo, on her chest, has never been fully revealed to the public, which just adds to the mystery… or maybe the regret.

Suvari has never explained either tattoo, leaving the internet guessing wildly.

Temporary ink site Tattoo 4 A Week didn’t hold back, claiming her as their poster child for “Odd & Unexplainable Celebrity Tattoos.” 

Honestly, fair.

When Noah Centineo played the protagonist in The Recruit, no one got the “I’ve got a tattoo on my head” vibe from him.

The actor, famously protective of his privacy, has a family of bears inked across his scalp.

He also carries a permanent reminder of his cast camaraderie from Warfare. 

Along with Joseph Quinn, Charles Melton, Kit Connor, Will Poulter, Michael Gandolfini, D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, and Cosmo Jarvis, Centineo got a tattoo that read: “call on me.”

Beyond that, the actor has admitted to six more designs on his body, but true to form, he hasn’t revealed what they are or where they are. 

Fans, however, have pieced together a bit of the puzzle, and an Instagram collage suggests the hidden ink includes a pen and journal, a UFO, and script lines across his upper thighs.

“I really like tattoos, but the problem is, when you wear a short-sleeve shirt in a movie, that’s an extra hour in the makeup chair. It’s not worth it,” Chris Evans told Hot Hits in a 2024 interview.

“I’m all for tattoos, but just somewhere they can be hidden.” And so, the ink designs keep a low profile on the Marvel star’s body. 

The man has an eagle on his chest which he says is in memoriam for a friend. Hints by celeb artist, Josh Lord, suggest the actor got the piece in 2016.

Then he has a quote by spiritual mentor Eckhart Tolle which reads: 

“When you lose touch with your inner stillness, you lose touch with yourself, when you lose touch with yourself, you lose yourself in the world.” 

“I really like Eckhart Tolle,” Evans defended the choice.

An animal lover, Evans adopted a dog named Dodger and then got the dog’s name tatted on his chest.

Speaking on Jimmy Kimmel Live! three years later, he described the relationship between him and his hound as the “purest” in his life.

On Evans’ left shoulder, he shows off a taurus tattoo. He told USA Today in 2004 that it was a tribute to his mother, Lisa Capuano, who was born on May 21.

On his right shoulder, he had the Chinese symbol for family. Speaking to Glamour in 2012, he suggested that the figure summed up his entire ink theme.

Then, in 2016, the cursive word “loyalty” became exposed thanks to his provocative Gucci campaign with Evan Rachel Wood. 

“They’re pretty much all for family,” he told Glamour previously. Then, according to a 2020 Page Six report, Evans had the Chinese symbol on his right shoulder removed. 

The familial sentiment remains near and dear, as can be seen from the “SCS” piece on his right ankle, which became unclothed on the set of A Many Splintered Thing in 2012.

Evans says the letters stand for Scott, Carly, and Shanna, who are his siblings, per People.

The Marvel star’s Avengers emblem is perhaps a testimony to another kind of family, as he, Scarlet Johansson, Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Jeremy Renner, and their tattoo artist all have the design. 

Lady Gaga’s 24 tattoos caught Cosmopolitan’s attention. Especially the “giant spine tattoo”, a “tribute to the House of Gucci,” and the cherub at the back of her hairline.

Her left shoulder blade is a collage of seemingly unrelated stamps, including one with a heart and the word “dad,” a bouquet of daisies, a flock of swallows, and a long-nailed hand bearing a string of beads, not to mention a design that could represent a lotus of some kind.

Below the same arm, on her upper ribcage, the songstress has the words “mother monster,” which may or may not be related to the claw on her left shoulder blade, which has since been described as a “monster hand.”

On the arm itself, in the region of the inner bicep, she completes her fascination with monsters with the words “little monsters.” According to Cosmo, she is referring to her fans with this phrase.

Right above the latter is the German script by Austrian poet and novelist Rainer Maria Rilke.

When translated, it reads: “In the deepest hour of the night, confess to yourself that you would [expire] if you were forbidden to write. And look deep into your heart where it spreads its roots, the answer, and ask yourself, must I write?”

In the middle of this text is the date her aunt Joanne Stefani Germanotta succumbed to lupus (12-18-1974).

Tellingly, the singer’s fifth studio album, released in 2016, is named Joanne, and the name is tattooed inside her left elbow.

The heart tattoo on her left shoulder, which bears the word “dad,” is a tribute to her father’s open-heart surgery.

Other designs on the singer include an image of David Bowie on the left side of her ribcage, along with an anchor.

Also on her left shoulder blade is a tribute to her survival of an indecent assault, and then flowing down and across her back is the depiction of a massive black moth.

The moth was inked in time for the 2020 Grammys but was missing two years later when she debuted a rose and stalk running down her spine.

Lady Gaga has a few tributes to her career too, which include a treble clef on her lower back (reportedly her first tattoo ever), and a musical staff with the letters G-A-G-A.

On her right bicep is a trumpet, and on the side of her left arm lies the word “Art Pop.”

Lest we forget, the unicorn high on her left thigh and the peace symbol on her right wrist.

All in all, Cosmo counted 24—and this was in July 2024.

Once upon a time, Hollywood’s heartthrob, Britney Spears, had nine known tattoos, including the Hebrew script on her neck—ink she got while overseas, said to be tied to the Kabbalah faith and translates to mean “healing.”

She also has two designs that have been spotted peeking over her bikini line: one, reportedly, a starburst with no outline, and the other a Chinese symbol.

Testifying to but not fully embracing the era when the tramp stamp was all the rage, hers is a delicate fairy positioned just above her beltline.

On her left foot is a butterfly with vines—so small that photographers had to zoom in until the image became distorted.

Then there are the red lips below her right wrist, the dice on the inside of her arm, and the triangle on the same hand.

The world got the lowdown on MTV’s TRL host Carson Daly’s hidden art when he revealed it on TODAY back in 2014.

“This one is for my son,” he explained, pointing to a customized playing card. Another was for his father and grandfather, while a fourth simply read “NYC”—which he claimed was in memory of 9/11.

His stepdad didn’t escape the needle either: Daly swapped out the whiskey brand Cutty Sark for “Curly Sark” as a nod to his stepdad’s nickname…and because nothing says family like honoring Dad’s drink order.

In true equal-opportunity fashion, Daly added his niece Jaden Patricia’s name, noting that “Patricia” was also his mother’s handle. 

But then came the cardinal misstep: Inking a girlfriend’s name. 

When said relationship tanked, Daly gave his tattoo artist free rein on a cover-up solution. 

Daly recalled the conversation, saying, “Later, when I finally looked at my leg, I asked him what it was. He said, ‘It’s a crab claw coming out of a pocket knife,’” Daly recalled.

To be fair, it does look like “a crab claw coming out of a clasp knife”—if you squint and look very quickly.

It appears those privy to Kelly Osbourne’s skin-deep secrets stopped counting at 19, and the designs they checked off were things like a teardrop on her finger, a heart on her knuckles, and a star on her neck.

She also has tributes to her late father, her brother Jack, her mother, and even the unrelated American multi-hyphenate, Joan Rivers.

While not fully committing to the get-your-boyfriend’s-name-inked trend that seems to jinx relationships, she got dangerously close when she and Bert McCracken and the two went for matching heart tattoos. 

In line with the unwritten rules of inking, they split a year later. He broke up with her on Valentine’s Day.

Her most questionable tattoos? Apparently, the two skull-and-bones depictions on her feet; one with a lightning bolt, the other with a bow. 

Even her mother, Sharon Osbourne, went ballistic when she saw it and wanted to know if Kelly was a pirate before banning her from getting any more.

These days, Kelly admits to regretting most of her ink and has already started lasering one with the word “lovely” off.

“I have found myself saying ‘no pain no gain’ or ‘pain is beauty!’ However the bigger lesson I have taken away from this horrendously painful experience is THINK BEFORE YOU INK!…” she confessed in a blog post (via Closer).