If you’ve ever seen a picture of Ed Sheeran, you’d know he’s got a fair few tattoos – but the full scope of his body art is truly…something.
A while ago, Twitter user @masiavelli tweeted a topless photo of the ‘Beautiful People’ singer showing off his ink with the feisty caption, “Ed Sheeran’s tattoo artist should be jailed for life for criminal negligence.”
The tweet attracted 8.4K retweets, 66.2K likes and plenty of savage comments agreeing that Sheeran’s tats are a mixed bag, to say the least.
One user wrote, “The only person who’s criminally negligent (against himself) is Ed Sheeran, who has chosen to irreversibly deface his own body.” Another wrote, “looks like he’s been left unsupervised with a pack of felt tip pens and some toddlers.”
Ouch!
Apparently, Sheeran got his first tattoo when he was 18 years old and has since had somewhere between 60 and 100 tats inked onto his body including everything from boxing gloves to a teddy bear.
On closer inspection of @masiavelli’s Twitter pic, Sheeran is also rocking a badly drawn shark, a key hole, a cherry blossom branch, the three-eyed fish from The Simpsons, puzzle pieces, a paw print, and the phrase ‘Ladz on Tour’ – not to mention his infamous Heinz Ketchup bottle.
There’s no doubt that Sheeran’s tats are a bit of a hodge podge, but you’ve got to give it to him: they’ve all got significance and personal meaning, and that’s all that should matter, right?
You don’t get tattoos for other people – unless it’s a ex-partner or your mum’s name – so Sheeran shouldn’t give a hoot what other people think. In a 2017 interview, the singer said, “I’ll look f*cking cool when I’m old…I might look wrinkly but have you ever seen your granddad with his top off? Because I haven’t.”
“I get one for anything I’m proud of or for something I want to remember,” he said. “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.”
TBH, if I ever lived Ed Sheeran’s life, I’d want to remember all my incredible milestones – so I don’t blame him for wanting them permanently inked.