Stars—they’re… not like us at all, actually. They’re wealthier, better looking, and (sometimes) more talented at multiple things than most of us are at any one thing. That makes the temptation to relate to them both baffling and sensible at the same time. On the one hand, they’re impossible to relate to, but on the other hand, what fun is it to try to connect with someone who’s already like you? Yes Allisyn, it’s very cool that you’re trying intermittent fasting for the fourth time, but I’m more interested in Cardi B’s new Lamborghini. But if Ariana Grande’s new tattoo is any indication, sometimes it’s indeed possible for a celebrity to fall ass-backwards into relatability.
As you may be aware, Ari’s latest song is “7 Rings,” a tune about how Ariana and her friends are the last people on Earth to actually shop in physical brick and mortar stores. It’s become a minor hit, because who the hell knew that getting involved with one of the least-used players on an SNL cast full of not useful people was the ticket to having everything you touch (or sing) turn to gold? And because everything 1998 is new again, the almost-Mrs. Davidson decided it would be rad as hell to include some Asian characters in the graphics. In this case, the characters were Japanese, as seen in the video:
Cool, cool. It checks out, those characters translate to “7 rings” in Japanese. Not sure why she’s going all Gwen Stefani here, but there’s a reason she’s a famous singer and I’m not. Things got less cool, however, when Ari decided to celebrate the song’s success by getting a tattoo (an idea that’s never backfired on her in the past). In what I’m interpreting as a testament to how difficult it is for an artist to make money in the modern streaming economy, Ariana Grande’s new tattoo cuts a few corners, opting to only ink the Japanese characters for “7” and “wheels,” i.e., rings:
【Instagramより】
アリアナがまた日本語のタトゥーを追加!今度はなんと漢字で「七輪」????
「みんなこれは私の手じゃないって思っているみたいだけど、本当に私の手よ????」とコメントしています。
「七つの指輪」を略して「七輪」かな????????とても気に入っているよう????#アリアナ pic.twitter.com/wR55jgu7FU— アリアナ・グランデ JP公式 (@ariana_japan) January 30, 2019
While that’s all well and good, there’s one teensy problem: it doesn’t mean what she thinks it means. According to Kotaku (a site for nerds), while those characters do mean “7” and “wheels” separately, when you put together they mean something else entirely: “shichirin,” or a small charcoal grill used in Japanese BBQ. That’s literally it—it’s a simple clay or metal pot with a little steel grate over it for cooking (you can get a little crappy one on Amazon for $13 if you’re already planning this year’s ironic Halloween costume).
アリアナが七輪のタトゥー入れてる笑 pic.twitter.com/9Jj4Fs2hIE
— at (@aoi80550747) January 30, 2019
UPDATE: Ari has pulled off the rare and coveted double tattoo screw-up. On the advice of her Japanese tutor (something she definitely does not have), she added the character for “finger” (and a heart, for some reason). The only tiny problem is that she didn’t put it where the tutor told her to put it, so her tattoo is still nonsense. It now means something like “Japanese BBQ finger.” So she now LOVES Japanese BBQ, and also fingers.
So what have we learned from Ariana Grande’s new tattoo? Plenty. I submit that this is really the moment she went from robot to regular person. Consider how much this one small thing means we have in common:
Do I do things impulsively? The pile of Amazon boxes waiting for me to recycle them seems to indicate “yes.”
Do I think Asian calligraphy is cool for no good reason? I owned a hat like this in high school.
Do I actually speak or understand Japanese? Haha, no.
Is Japanese BBQ delicious? Unequivocally.
Am I an idiot? The biggest, possibly.
There you have it, Ariana Grande’s new tattoo means that she’s just like us and probably that she and I could hang out for like 15-20 minutes before I would want to throw myself in front of an oncoming train. Maybe we could go to one of America’s few remaining shopping malls and she could buy me something.
But lest you think I’m picking on Ariana, consider that she’s not even close to the only celebrity to do a dumb and bad tattoo—in fact, it’s probably easier to make a list of celebs who haven’t. But here’s a small sample:
Rihanna
Ri is the proud owner of not one, but two tattoo screw-ups: One on her neck in French that, due to grammatical errors, translates to “flower rebel,” and one in Sanskrit on her side that’s supposed to say “forgiveness” but actually says nothing, because it’s misspelled.
Britney Spears
Rising to fame in the 90s, it’s maybe not a surprise that she also fell victim to a misunderstood Asian character tattoo. She wanted “mysterious” tattooed on her pubic bone area (the most 90s tattoo location) in Chinese, but what she got translated to “strange” instead. Weird flex, but ok.
Christina Aguilera
Perpetually playing second fiddle to Britney, Christina also got in on the bad tattoo action. In her case, she wanted the initials of her then-husband Jordan Bratman on her arm in Hebrew. Instead she got “12,” which is pretty much the same if you think about it.
Hayden Panettiere
Some tattoos are misspelled, but a select few do so with some delicious irony. Hayden wanted “live without regrets” tattooed down her ribcage in Italian, but the artist misspelled it. It rules that now she cannot look at her own tattoo without doing the thing the tattoo expressly tells her not to.
Nicole Richie
Nicole Richie may now be heralded for her ideas and designs as a fashion mogul, but one design she regrets is her tattoo. Nicole is a virgo, so when she was 16 she thought it would be edgy as hell if she instead got “virgin” tattooed on her wrist. It’s not, but no one knows that better than she does.
Images: Ariana Grande/YouTube, Ariana Grande Japan/Twitter, at/Twitter; Getty Images (5)
Drake, aka the nicest fanboy in rap, has taken his reputation as hip-hop’s over-eager bar mitzvah boy to the next level with his latest tattoo. I mean, it’s honestly hard to think of a member of the hip hop community who Drake is not low-key obsessed with. Nicki, Rihanna, Kanye (in a love-hate sort of way), the list goes on and on. While we have no problem with a light bromance here and there, Drake has officially taken his unholy obsession relationship with Lil Wayne to the next level. No, I don’t mean that they’re hooking up with each other (though that would be kind of fun, wouldn’t it?), I’m talking about the fact that Drake got a giant tattoo of Wayne on his arm. Which is like…more than a little strange. I mean, this is some Kylie & Tyga shit for sure. Don’t rappers usually reserve the tattoo memorials for people in their life who has died? As far as I know, Wayne, despite being a literal walking bottle of cough syrup, is still alive. I mean, I get that Wayne was a huge influence for Drake, but this seems a little extreme for friendship. Like, I love my besties, but I’m not going to get any of them tatted on my body anytime soon. Unless one of them gets married – anything can happen at a bachelorette.
Apparently, Drake got the tattoo a few months ago and immediately showed it to Wayne for approval, but he didn’t reveal it publicly until he hosted an event this weekend in a sleeveless basketball jersey, kind of like girls who wait until prom to reveal that they’re pregnant.
Drake is really great at simultaneously being the best and the worst, and this is one of his most questionable decisions. Wayne has long been a mentor to Drake, all the way back to when he signed him to his label in 2009. When Lil Wayne first saw it, he was apparently “beyond floored and honored, since loyalty’s a big deal with him.” Loyalty is great and all, but yeah, we’re still never going to get the Tito’s Vodka logo tattooed on our arm.
So yeah, we’re not sure how we feel about Drake’s latest ink, but we’re pretty sure we hate it. Nope, we’re positive we hate it. 100% positive. Sorry Drake, but you might need to wear sleeves from right now. You’ll live.