Oh boy. Demi Lovato is in a Twitter battle with a tattoo artist who gave her a lips tattoo back in the day, before the singer was in rehab and recovery. Lovato covered the tattoo, located on her wrist, with a monster rose, since she felt it looked like the other set of lips... as in the vagina, not the lips on your face.
Lovato, who has been very vocal about her long, hard road to sobriety, battling her demons and gaining control of her life, and the alleged artist behind the infamous tattoo have been hurling insults back and forth.
Basically, Ashley McMullen, who claims she was the artist, was insulted that Lovato covered the tattoo, criticizing its look. She said Lovato was a "drunk mess" when getting the ink and even peed on the toilet seat when using the facilities. Yeah, she went there.
Lovato replied, but that post appears to have been deleted, although nothing dies on the Internet. Just Jared shared a screen grab, in which Lovato further dissed the bunk tattoo, saying, "...if I were you, I wouldn’t claim that one because it looked more like an open vagina (or even a butt hole as my 8 year old little sister called it at the time.)" Ouch!
Overall, though, in that post, Lovato took responsibility for her behavior, since it was during her dark phase, which she never hid, all the while retorting with a sarcastic apology, claiming to not even remember the artist and questioning her ethics for tattooing a drunk celeb.
Things have escalated and gotten heated over social media between the singer/actress and the alleged artist. Their public battle over a piece of body art really teaches us a few important things about tattoos-as-fashion.
Drama and details aside, there are lessons to be learned here. Three of them, actually. Tattoos are an outer expression of who we are, or at least that's what they should be. This mess reminds us of how we need to treat tattoos-as-fashion.
1. Haste Makes Waste...
Tattoos are permanent. Screw laser removal; it's imperfect and hurts. Lovato's unintentional vajayjay tattoo reminds us that they are not to be entered into hastily, lightly, while drunk, or without forethought. People can see them and they are, for all intents and purposes, an accessory.
2. ... Or You Have To Get A Huge Cover Up Piece
Even if the tattoo you want to eradicate is the size of three quarters, it requires a MUCH bigger piece to cover it up. If you were never planning to have a giant piece on your arm, like Demi had to resort to when covering up the lips, you might end up with a big, visible, and unplanned replacement that doesn't fit your style or what you want to present.
3. Better Left Alone
The social media barbs traded by Lovato and McMullen make me think that perhaps a bunk tattoo is better left alone. It wasn't giant to begin with, nor was it as heinous as Lovatothinks. But it bothered her, it's her body, and she chose to make it disappear under more ink.
Tattoos are commitments and while they enhance our look and style, it's not easy to replace last year's model. In fact, there is no such thing in tattoos. They are not meant to be trendy, seasonal, or discarded. They are meant to capture chapters of your life.
So think twice. Think trice. Hell, think 20 times before going under the needle and your tattoo will be a forever representation of you in that particular period of your life, no matter how much you've changed.
Images: Demi Lovato/Instagram (1); Giphy (4)
