20+ Celebrities Who Regretted Getting Their Tattoos & Had Them Removed

Guardians of the Galaxy star and ex-wrestler Dave Batista’s gargantuan body is covered in tats, but did you know he got a “cement heart” tattooed on his behind when he was young?

Big Dave admitted his fellow WWE stars would occasionally catch a glimpse of the ink in the showers, leading to some awkward questions, so he eventually saw sense and had it removed in 2007. The giant of a man says he’s happy he no longer has to hide it.

This has to be our most ironic tattoo. Heroes star Hayden Panettiere had “Vivere senza rimipianti,” meaning “To live without regrets” in Italian, tattooed all the way down her back. However, the tattooist didn’t study Latin at school, misspelled the Italian phrase, and added an extra “I” at the end.

Poor Panettiere definitely lived with regrets and had the tattooed typo removed in 2013. It could’ve been worse, she could’ve asked for an American Eagle, and had the tattooist give her an American Beagle!

Khloé Kardashian was very close with her father, attorney Robert Kardashian. So after he passed away, she honored his memory with a tattoo. The 16-year-old had the word “Daddy” inscribed above a cross and an angel on her lower back.

But her sister, Kim, hated the tattoo and described it as putting “a bumper sticker on a Bentley,” so Khloé had it removed. Instead, she had a more tasteful tattoo done on her wrist, which reads “I love you” in her father’s handwriting.

When he was younger, Ryan Reynolds got numerous tattoos all over his legs but admitted, “I hate them all.” He particularly hates the three hours it takes to cover them up with makeup every morning on movie sets and said that “if it wasn’t hours and hours of brutal pain,” he would get them all lasered off.

The Deadpool and Green Lantern actor says, “But my wife says I should keep them, keep a record of the choices I’ve made.” Which is another way of saying ‘own your mistakes.’

When Dwayne “The Rock” ​Johnson was a wrestler, he had a distinctive Brahma bull’s head tattoo on his bulging bicep. But in 2017, he had tattooist Nikko Hurtado turn it into a black/gray half-sleeve featuring a giant animal skull. Unhappy with the result, he later hired Venezuelan inker Yomico Moreno to give the makeover a makeover.

His latest Hawaiian half-sleeve features “a full border of water to represent power and protection and to celebrate what the ocean means in Polynesian culture.”

English pop singer Jessie J posted a picture of her in a bikini proudly showing off her new tattoo on Instagram and owned up to the tattooist’s terrible typo in the caption. “Yes, my tattoo says…’don’t loose who you are in the blur of the stars,'” she wrote.

She continued, “Yes, they are MY lyrics from my song, “Who You Are”. Yes, that I wrote. Yes, I spelt the tattoo wrong. Yes, I repeat, it’s spelt wrong.” Jessie says she’ll wear high-waisted clothes instead of getting the ink removed.

Did you know Angelina Jolie has over a dozen tattoos? Recently, she admitted she feels pretty ashamed of some of them. She said, “I’m so embarrassed by some of the tattoos I have. I should have thought about them more and chosen different designs that have more meaning to me.”

But the tattoo Jolie regrets the most is of her first husband’s name, Billy Bob Thornton, on her upper left arm. After their divorce, she covered it with her six children’s birth dates and locations.

Justin Beiber started out with a small tattoo of a seagull on his lower abs as a tribute to a book his family love, Richard Bach’s novella Jonathan Livingston Seagull. But as so often happens, his passion for tattoos became an obsession.

Nowadays, the Canadian popster has dozens of tattoos all over his body. The one he regrets is a wrist tattoo of his ex-girlfriend, Selena Gomez. He once explained to GQ magazine, “I tried to cover her face up with some shading, but people still know.”

When she wasn’t fighting in Transformers, Megan Fox was famous for her many tattoos. The most prominent one was Marilyn Monroe’s face on her arm. However, eagle-eyed fans noticed her Norma Jean Baker ink started to fade. Megan revealed she had the tattoo removed as she didn’t want Monroe’s negativity in her life.

The stunning actress said, “I’m removing it. She was a negative person; she was disturbed… I do not want to attract this kind of negative energy in my life.” She later became engaged to Machine Gun Kelly.

Ex-Spice Girl and current fashion designer Victoria Beckham had her husband, ex-soccer captain, and current dad, David Beckham’s initials tattooed on her wrist. But in recent years, she’s let the tattoo fade. The media speculated that this was because their marriage was on the rocks.

However, Victoria set the record straight, saying she’d just become bored of it. The tattoo, not the marriage! Although that said, the gorgeous British couple has been together for 25 years, so no one could blame her!

Charmed and Scream actress and vocal activist Rose McGowan once had a tattoo of a pinup girl on her right shoulder blade. She eventually realized she didn’t like it, so she had it removed in 2007. However, that wasn’t the end of her tattoo story…

McGowan famously fell out with actress Asia Argento. So Asia got a tattoo of a dagger saying, “Significato: vendetta consumata,” an Italian phrase that translates to “Meaning: revenge achieved.” Argento tweeted a photo of her ink, saying, “Bye, Bye, @rosemcgowan.”

Sly Stallone had a giant tattoo of his wife, Jennifer Flavin, on his upper arm. But when they broke up, and she became Expendable, the action star tried to have it covered with another design. Unfortunately, the new tattoo was unsatisfactory, so he had to cover the original image with a tattoo of his dog Butkus from the Rocky films.

Butkus was Stallone’s real-life pooch, and he had to sell him to fund the Rocky script. As soon as he made his money back, he found and bought Butkus, returning him home.

In 2008, gorgeous supermodel and future America’s Got Talent judge Heidi Klum had her then-husband, Seal’s name tattooed to celebrate their fourth wedding anniversary. His name was a swirl design on her right forearm, featuring four stars, one for each of Heidi’s children – three with Seal and one with her ex, stylist Ric Pipino.

But Heidi and Seal divorced in 2013, and she’s since had the tattoo removed. The ink has gradually faded, but her kids’ four stars remain.

When actress Jessica Alba was just 17 years old, she had a flower inked on the back of her neck. But as she grew up, she realized she hated the floral tattoo and went to great lengths to have it removed. But however hard she tried, it just wouldn’t go away…

Jessica revealed, “I’m so irritated that I got it lasered many times, and it’s not coming out.” She said she also has a bow in the middle of her lower back that feels, according to her, kind of trashy.

Kelly Osbourne has had most of her 15 tattoos removed. “I was miserable, and I just went and got all these tattoos, and I don’t know why,” she said. “One of them is a keyboard, and I don’t even know how to play a piano!”

Ozzy and Sharon’s wild child even shared an Instagram gallery showing getting two of the tattoos removed. “Who else knows how bad this hurts,” the caption reads. “It’s 1000000000000 times worse than getting the tattoo!!!”

Australian rapper and singer Amethyst Amelia Kelly, aka Iggy Azalea, had “Live, Love, A$AP” tattooed across three fingers. The ink was a dedication to her then-boyfriend A$AP Rocky’s album of the same name. Upon splitting from A$AP, she covered the “A$AP” tattoo with a big black “X” on her finger.

Iggy has since dated Los Angeles Lakers basketball player Nick Young and Moroccan-American rapper French Montana. She’s also raising rapper Playboi Carti’s baby boy. Luckily, she’s learned not to have their names tattooed.

Pharrell Williams didn’t just get one tattoo removed; he had them all removed! The record producer, rapper, singer, and songwriter had several painful skin grafts as part of the process.

Pharrell explained, “These guys actually grow the skin for you … first you have to give them a sample of your skin, which they then replicate. Once that’s been done, they sew it on—and it’s seamless. It’s going to be pricey but worth it. I got fire on my arms! I’m a grown man!” We hope he’s Happy now!

Britney had already had her “mem hay shin” tattoo — which means “healing” — on the back of her neck removed in 2008. Then she posted that she was going to remove the pink dice on her wrist.

“Albert Einstein once said, ‘God does not play dice with the universe,'” she wrote on Instagram. “So maybe I shouldn’t have gotten the pink dice 7 on my left arm!!!!! I don’t even like ink … guess I should remove it ?!?!!!!”

Jennifer Lawrence has a tiny tattoo on her hand reading H20, the chemical formula for water. She explained, “I was with Liam [Hemsworth]’s family, and everybody was getting tattoos, and I was like, well, I’m always going to need to be hydrated, so I guess I should get H2O on my hand.”

However, J-Law later stated, “By the way, I know that the two is high, and in H2O, the two is supposed to be low. I should’ve Googled it before I got it tattooed on my body forever.”

You can bet Demi Lovato was Sorry Not Sorry when she had her friend’s lips tattooed on her forearm. The singer, songwriter, and actress called the idea “a spur-of-the-moment stupid decision.” But instead of getting the ink lasered off, Demi covered the lips with two detailed roses.

It’s not the only decision Demi might be about to regret as, more recently, they’ve had a giant spider tattooed on the side of their head. Let’s hope her hair doesn’t fall out!

In the late 1980s, teenage heartthrob Johnny Depp dated Winona Ryder. They were together for four years, and Depp was so in love and so sure the relationship would last that he had a tattoo reading, “Winona Forever.”

But when the couple split, rather than having the tattoo removed, he simply got rid of the last two letters of his ex’s name removed, so it read “Wino Forever.” He also had his ex-wife Amber Heard’s nickname, SLIM, on his knuckles but, for some unexplainable reason, changed to SCUM, then SCAM.

When she was 16, rap goddess Nicki Minaj had her arm tattooed with Chinese characters reading, “God is with me always.” But as the “Super Freaky Girl” singer grew older, she wised up and ultimately regretted the decision.

Nicki confesses she thinks she was “way too young. You have no idea what you want to put on your body at the age of 16.” She added some advice for youngsters thinking of getting inked, “You need to wait until at least 21 and decide.”

One of the most famous tattoos ever has to be Pamela Anderson’s barb wire ink. After her role in Baywatch, and at the height of her fame, she got inked to play comic book superhero Barb Wire in the 1996 film of the same name.

At first, she had the makeup team create a fake tattoo every day. But she became so fed up with that malarky that she had a real barbed wire tattoo inked around her right bicep. But by 2014, she had the iconic tattoo permanently removed.

Desperate Housewife Eva Longoria has had three tattoos removed. In a nod to her ex-husband Tony Parker’s baseball jersey number, and egged on by her friend boxer Oscar de la Hoya, she had tattoos of the number nine plus Tony’s initials and their wedding date.

But after the two divorced in 2010, she documented her visit to Dr. Tattoff in Los Angeles. On Snapchat, she revealed, “This is a tale for all young kids, it hurts to get a tattoo, but it’s 10 times worse getting it off!”

Colin Farell went the opposite way of Pamela Anderson. Instead of getting tats for a role, he got the tribal tattoos on his arm and a Chinese tattoo on his chest removed. He said, “I’m getting rid of them because I got tired of getting painted in the makeup chair anytime I wear a T-shirt.”

The hunky Irish star continued, “It buys me an extra 45 minutes of sleep in the morning.” He went on to play The Penguin in The Batman, and the makeup required four hours every morning!

Nicole Riche had eight tattoos, including angel wings on her back. But the one she wasn’t happy with was a cross on her lower back. She documented the removal of this tattoo in her online AOL Series called #CandidlyNicole.

The reality TV star and heiress to Lionel Richie’s fortune said, “It just means a certain thing, and I don’t want to be part of that group.” Who on earth could she be referring to? Answers on a postcard… destination Paris!

Did you know that the reality TV show LA Ink’s most famous tattooist Von D had one of her tattoos removed? When she was dating Jesse James (the West Coast Choppers entrepreneur and TV personality, not the cowboy), Kat had a creepy portrait of him in fifth grade etched on her side under her armpit.

But in 2012, news of Jesse’s infidelity hit the headlines, so Kat had the garish ink removed and even went as far as documenting the process on TMZ.

When Curtis Jackson, aka Fiddy Cent, became an actor, he realized he loathed sitting through hours of makeup to have his tattoos covered up. He confessed, ”When I started working on Twelve, I removed some tattoos. The call time they were giving me for covering tattoos was four hours beftore everyone else’s call time. So if everyone is getting there for six am, I’m there at two am.”

For this reason, and because he felt it was “time to free his body from his body art,” Fiddy began the removal process.

To accompany her 2019 single, songstress Ariana Grande debuted a new palm tattoo that read “7 rings” on social media. However, Japanese fans pointed out that it actually means “Japanese BBQ grill.” Separately, the two characters represent seven and ring, but together mean Shichirin, the name for a small charcoal grill.

Ariana called in some favors — including from her Japanese tutor — to fix the tiny typo. “rip tiny charcoal grill. miss u man. i actually really like u,” she wrote on Instagram Stories. Grande also covered up several tattoos she got with ex-fiance Pete Davidson.

Saturday Night Live bad boy Pete Davidson is still covered by over 100 tattoos, so it’s surprising to hear that he’s had dozens of them “burned” off (his words) to prioritize his Hollywood career.

The King of Staten Island star had to spend hours in makeup, having his ink covered up. He once tweeted, “it takes 3-4 hours in the makeup chair to cover them,” so he decided “it would be easier to get them burned off.” The ex-SNL star admitted having them removed was “worse than getting them.”

Hands up, who remembers Adrienne Bailon? If you don’t recall the name, she appeared in the early seasons of Keeping Up With the Kardashians when she dated Rob Kardashian between 2007 and 2009. The former 3LW and Cheetah Girl singer had Rob’s full name tattooed on her derrière!

Surely, it had to be for a dare and not for love. After they split up (because Rob cheated on her), Adrienne had the embarrassing tattoo removed. Imagine explaining you were the butt of a joke to your new beau!

Sarah Hyland shot to fame playing Hayley in the sitcom Modern Family. In 2017, the hilarious actress got a tattoo of a cheeky dinosaur on her butt cheek! But the talented young actress soon saw sense and had the tattoo made extinct. With a laser, not an asteroid.

In 2019, Sarah shared a video on her Instagram Stories documenting the removal process. She also included some rather painful-looking photos and the explanatory words, “Actual reaction to some laser tattoo removal.” Kids, don’t be the butt of someone else’s joke.

Actor and rapper Mark Wahlberg removed “like, eight or nine tattoos all the way around my neck, my stomach, my arms, my back, my leg.” The tattoos he got rid of included a rosary, a picture of Bob Marley, his name and initials, and Sylvester the Cat with Tweety Bird in his mouth.

When asked why he had his ink removed, Mark said it was in a bid for “maturity [and] sensibility.” When asked if he thought it was a good idea, Tweety Bird replied, “I did! I did!”

Kaley Cuoco had a large Roman numeral tattoo on her upper back. It signified her wedding date to her ex-husband, former tennis player Ryan Sweeting. But when they split, she covered it over with a moth with its wings spread.

In 2016, she told Ellen Degeneres she chose a moth because “it was big enough to cover the numbers… the wings. Big wings.” In an Instagram post, she wrote, “note to self — do not mark your body with any future wedding dates. #under30mistakes #donttakeyourselftooseriouslykids.”

Denise Richards shot to fame in the 1990s in films like Wild Things and Starship Troopers. She even played Bond Girl, Dr. Christmas Jones, in The Word Is Not Enough. At the height of her fame, she married Hollywood bad boy Charlie Sheen in 2002 and had his name inked on her ankle.

Denise filed for divorce and took out a restraining order on Sheen when she was pregnant with his second daughter. Instead of having the tattoo lasered off, the former Real Housewife covered the ankle ink with a fairy tattoo.

Adam Levine has his fair share of tattoos. The Maroon 5 frontman revealed he would never have his tats removed but admitted there’s one he thinks is “pretty stupid.” The shoulder tattoo in question was inspired by a Russian prison tattoo.

He tried to have it covered, but it looked like “a cauliflower with a sun in the middle of it. It’s just despicable-looking. I tried to surround it with something, and then it just got even worse.” Adam, the Russian word for ‘regret’ is сожалеть.

Actress Melanie Griffith was married to Spanish actor Antonio Banderas for almost two decades. She was so sure their relationship would last that she had her husband’s name permanently etched in ink – encased in an elaborately designed heart – on the top of her arm.

However, the couple didn’t quite make it to their 20th anniversary and split in 2014. So first, Melanie had Antonio’s name removed before eventually removing the whole heart. We mean the tattoo, not her actual heart, because that would be going too far!

Instead of a wedding ring, former Real Housewives of Orange County star Tamra Judge had her husband Simon Barney’s name tattooed on her left ring finger. Unfortunately, the marriage ended after 13 years and three children together.

Tamra covered the tat with a ring until she removed it with the help of Dr. Terry Dubrow, who happens to be the husband of former Real Housewives of Orange County cast member Heather Dubrow. Tamra later wed Eddie Judge, and the two have been happily married for 10 years.

Britney already had tattoos removed, so you’d think she’d have learned her lesson. But in January 2023, she was up to her old tricks, getting a black and white baby duck permanently stenciled into her right forearm while on vacation in Hawaii.

The Princess of Pop wrote on Instagram Stories, “Tattoo in Maui 3 days ago,” the first part of the caption read. “Can’t show it because it sucks !!! Like, really, really sucks !!! Psss… I have to fix it!!!”

Would you believe that Nicole Richie’s lower back stamp isn’t her most embarrassing tattoo? She says the embarrassing and desperate one on her wrist that reads “Virgin” is her biggest regret.

She explained, “When I was 16, I thought, ‘Ooh I’m going to be different, and I’m going to put virgin because the Virgin is the sign for Virgo.” She later joked that her best remedy was to add an “ia” to the end and tell people she’s from Virginia!