Love might not be permanent, but ink sure is.
These celebs learned the hard way that while relationships end, tattoos are forever…
and coverups are a bigger pain than any breakup.
Justin Bieber is covered in tattoos, but there's one that stands out more than others.
In April 2013, the pop star got a portrait of his then-girlfriend Selena Gomez inked
on his left wrist.
The tattoo portrayed the former Disney star with angel wings and seemed to resemble the
lead image from Gomez's July 2012 photoshoot for Elle magazine.
The couple were first linked in 2010 and had an on-again, off-again relationship that spanned
eight years.
During one of their splits in 2016, Bieber discussed the tattoo of his ex with GQ.
"This is my ex-girlfriend, I tried to kinda cover her face with some shading, but people
still know."
The couple officially split in March 2018, and Bieber moved on with Hailey Baldwin a
month later.
The two got engaged in July and married in September.
With the Biebs being a huge fan of tattoos, it's no surprise that he and Hailey also got
matching tattoos of their own.
Bieber celebrated the success of his 2021 single "Peaches" by getting the fruit tattooed
on his neck.
In an Instagram Story, Hailey shared that she also got a small peach tattoo on the inside
of her forearm.
Pete Davidson has made headlines with some of the most beautiful women in the industry,
but it was his surprise 2018 engagement to Ariana Grande that made the biggest wave.
After only a few weeks of dating, Davidson and the "Thank U, Next," singer got engaged
in June of that year.
Over the course of their brief relationship, the pair reportedly got as many as nine tattoos
dedicated to one another.
By October 2018, the couple was officially over, which meant that both stars were headed
back to a tattoo shop to alter the inky remnants of their love affair.
By December, Grande had covered up the number "8418" on her foot, which had been a tribute
to the badge number of Davidson's father, a firefighter who died on 9/11.
Her new ink read "Myron," the name of the dog belonging to her late ex-boyfriend, Mac Miller.
"I just went down to do the bend and snap and was like..." "Oh, what a foot."
Look at my 'Myron.' “It’s beautiful!”
Guys.
Look.
How cool, right?"
Additionally, Grande covered a "Pete" tattoo on her finger with a large heart, and a tattoo
that read "Reborn" on her hand was changed to a fern leaf.
As for Davidson, the actor also chose to cover his Grande tattoos.
While his neck once boasted the phrase "Mille Tendresse" — which means "a thousand tendernesses"
in French — the actor had it changed to the word "Cursed."
Adrienne Bailon and the Kardashian-Jenner family go way back.
Between 2007 and 2009, the "Cheetah Girls" actor dated Rob Kardashian, and she even appeared
in the second and third seasons of "Keeping Up With the Kardashians."
The former couple made their love permanent when Bailon got a tattoo of Rob's name on
her butt, while Kardashian revealed to his famous sisters that he'd inked Bailon's full
name on his ribcage.
"Robert!"
"Rob!
It's enormous!"
"No one's gonna see this."
Bailon talked about why she got the tattoo in the first place on "The Real," saying:
"You know those rap songs that were like, 'Cause that is mine,' you know?
So people did that and that was like a cool thing to do."
Five years after their split, Bailon had her tattoo lasered off and even welcomed cameras
to come into the room to see the procedure.
In March 2021, she told InTouch that her tattoo isn't completely gone.
She might leave it, however, to teach her children about the repercussions of making
rash decisions.
She shared:
"It's a teachable moment."
Angelina Jolie is no stranger to getting ink.
Her most notable include a Buddhist spell and a Bengal tiger on her back, "Know your
rights" on the base of her neck, and a huge cross on her hip accompanied by a Latin phrase
that translates to, "What nourishes me, destroys me."
Talking to Marie Claire in 2010 about her tattoos, Jolie said:
"I love them.
They're body art.
I don't think it's abnormal that someone who spends their life in other skins wants to
claim their own by marking things on it that matter to them."
The "Maleficent" actor's most famous tattoo was the one she dedicated to actor Billy Bob Thorton.
Inked on her upper arm, it featured Thorton's name with a dragon underneath it.
The couple wed in 2000 and caused a frenzy when they shared that they wore vials of each
other's blood around their necks.
"The thing is, we're never gonna separate, so it's our way of saying to each other…
we just, we're together forever, we're so in love."
The couple split in 2002, and their divorce was finalized a year later.
Jolie lasered her tattoo off and eventually covered the scars with the geographical coordinates
of her children's birthplaces.
In July 2007, "Desperate Housewives" star Eva Longoria married former NBA player Tony
Parker in a lavish wedding in Paris, France.
To commemorate their nuptials, the actor got a trio of tattoos — their wedding date on
the inside of her wrist, Parker's San Antonio Spurs jersey number "nine" on the back of
her neck, and her husband's initials.
Just three years later, however, Longoria filed for divorce amidst rumors that Parker
may have been unfaithful.
In 2012, Longoria began the process of removing all of her tattoos dedicated to her ex.
Four years later, she documented the laser removal of a star tattoo on her wrist on Snapchat.
The actor didn't explain why she was removing the ink, but it didn't appear to have anything
to do with her ex-husband.
Regardless, she did share a word of warning her followers, stating:
"This is a tale for all young kids.
It hurts to get a tattoo, but it's ten times worse getting it off!"
Supermodel Heidi Klum and "Kiss From A Rose" singer Seal got married in May 2005.
The couple would renew their wedding vows every year, and for their fourth wedding anniversary,
Klum made things even more permanent with a tattoo to honor Seal and their four children.
In 2008, Klum told People about her new ink, which was done along her inner right arm and
appeared to be an abstract design of Seal's name with four stars representing their children.
The couple called it quits in 2012, and their divorce was finalized two years later.
Speaking to The Sunday Times, Klum shared:
"I think I got married eight times to Seal.
I thought it would be kind of, like, fun.
I thought it would be a fest of love.
But you know, that doesn't work either.
I tried, you can't say I didn't try!"
Their divorce also meant that Klum felt differently about the body art she had dedicated to Seal.
The model lasered off the portion of the singer's name but left the four stars on her arm, for
her kids.
Kylie Jenner's relationship with Travis Scott got serious when they welcomed two children,
daughter Stormi and son Aire.
Fans of the "Keeping Up With the Kardashians" star, however, know that Scott wasn't the
first long-term relationship she had with a rapper.
The makeup mogul had a reported on-again, off-again relationship with Tyga, which began
around 2014 and ended in 2017.
While the two were an item, Jenner and the "Taste" rapper got tattoos for one another.
Tyga was seen sporting Kylie's name on his inner elbow in April 2015, while Jenner showed
love for the rapper with a tattoo of a lowercase "t" on her foot.
After they split, however, Jenner changed her tattoo to read "LA" likely referencing
Los Angeles.
Jenner and Scott also decided to solidify their relationship by getting matching butterfly tattoos.
In a YouTube video posted by the reality star in October 2020, Jenner reflected on her many
Halloween costumes over the years.
Discussing her matching 2018 butterfly costumes with Stormi, she explained the significance
of her shared ink with Scott.
"A butterfly is just a symbol of our relationship and Stormi, so it was special to do the butterfly costume."
Back in the early '00s, Nick Carter and Paris Hilton must have been head over heels for
each other when they both decided to get tattoos.
The Backstreet Boys singer and Hilton dated for just seven months before they broke up
in July 2004.
Three weeks before their split, Carter revealed that he got "Paris" tattooed on his wrist
while "The Simple Life" star also got inked — but she refused to disclose what it was
or where she had it done.
Asked by People if he had regrets over his new ink, Carter said:
"No, because I love her.
She'll have a place in my heart, always."
By November, Carter had covered his tattoo with a skull and crossbones.
The boy bander wasn't the only one to ink Hilton's first name on their skin.
When she was dating Chris Zylka in 2017, the reality star shared a photo of Zylka's new
tattoo on Instagram, which featured her first name in Disney font.
"Oh my god, my love just came home and surprised me, with a Paris tattoo in Disney font."
The couple got engaged in January 2018 but split in November, with a source telling People:
"The relationship moved very fast, and she realized it wasn't right for her."
In 2019, Zylka covered his "Paris" tattoo with a large portrait of a gorilla.
Before A$AP Rocky and Rihanna became a couple, the rapper had a serious relationship with
Iggy Azalea.
The pair began dating sometime around 2011 before the Australian rapper made it big with
her debut album, 2014's "The New Classic."
They made it even more official when Azalea tattooed the name of his mixtape "Live. Love. A$AP."
on her fingers.
She confirmed their romance to Vibe in 2012, sharing:
"I love him and that's all there is to it.
We have our own thing going on and I'm not the only one that [got the tattoos].
I'll tell you that.
I'm just the only one with it on my fingers!"
Unfortunately, the couple broke up that same year.
In her 2014 track, "Rolex," the star appeared to insinuate that A$AP Rocky was to blame
for their breakup, and used her ink to address it:
"I got you tatted, you took off before the ink dried on my hands"
A year earlier, the "Fancy" rapper told Complex that she had removed only half of her tattoo
and had no regrets about her ink and insisted:
"I would sacrifice a quarter of a pinky for those memories."
In 2014, however, she told Billboard that she was in the process of getting the entire
tattoo removed, and a year later it was reportedly gone.
In September, 2015, Azalea was seen leaving a cosmetic center in Beverly Hills with bandages
around the fingers where the ink once was.
Kaley Cuoco's marriage to her first husband, tennis professional Ryan Sweeting, was made
official on paper on December 31, 2013.
It was also cemented when "The Big Bang Theory" star tattooed the date in Roman numerals on
the back of her neck.
Unfortunately, Cuoco and Sweeting split 21 months later and she had to decide whether
to cover up her wedding date or remove it.
Cuoco opted to cover up her tattoo two months after she announced their divorce.
In a since-deleted Instagram photo, the actor was seen in pain while a tattoo artist worked
on her back.
She captioned the photo:
"Note to self — do not mark your body with any future wedding dates #under30mistakes"
Cuoco also shared a photo of her new ink — a giant moth.
During an appearance on "The Ellen Show" in February 2016, Cuoco opened up about her cover-up
and the meaning behind her new insect ink, saying:
"The tattoo was a mistake.
I had to cover it, I had to cover it with wings, which I think turned out okay.
[...] The significance is it was big enough to cover the numbers.
[...] It's just what I picked out when I was there."