24 celebrities on the tattoos they regret — and if they got them removed
24 celebrities on the tattoos they regret — and if they got them removed
Brianna ZiglerThu, June 11, 2026 at 8:48 PM UTC
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Miley Cyrus; Pete Davidson; Ben AffleckCredit: Kevin Winter/WireImage; Jeff Daly/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty; Stefanie Keenan/Getty
You'd think that getting most of your body covered in a solid black tattoo would be a shoe-in for Top Five Things a Person Regrets. But not if you're Machine Gun Kelly.
The "Emo Girl" singer recently told Billboard Canadathat he got "really sick" while undergoing the process of getting his massive blackout tattoo in 2024. "After the first week, we hit my lymph nodes around my armpits and shoulders, and I got really sick," MGK explained. "My skin was turning yellow. I wasn't able to sleep. I stopped being able to move certain parts of my upper body."
Despite this, he still doesn't regret covering most of his arms, chest, and stomach in a solid color tattoo. In fact, it left him feeling rather inspired, "Not just because of what I had done, but because of what I had to overcome," he added.
But there are plenty of celebs who regret their much tamer tattoos. From ill-conceived tramp stamps in their youth to tributes to relationships that have since ended, check out these 24 celebrities who have tattoos they wish they'd never got.
01 of 24
Ben Affleck
Ben Affleck at the premiere of Netflix's 'The Rip' in New York City in 2026Credit: Arturo Holmes/WireImage
Ben Affleck might have possibly covered up the giant, multi-colored phoenix tattoo on his back, but when talking about ink he regrets, that one didn't come up.
In a conversation with Complex's "GOAT Talk"to promote The Accountant 2, the Chasing Amy actor and his costar Jon Bernthal were asked about their biggest tattoo regrets. Affleck's? Barbed wire around his bicep when he was 16, which he didn't finish getting because it was so painful.
"It was terrible, so I was like, I better get something to cover that," he added.
02 of 24
Pete Davidson
Pete Davidson during rehearsals for 'Miley's New Year's Eve Party' in 2021Credit: Jeff Daly/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty
Pete Davidson is currently undergoing the arduous process of removing his many, many tattoos, and he's already spent $200,000 on it.
However, when it comes to the tattoo he's most embarrassed of, it's a phrase Dave Chappelle once said to him after seeing Davidson's set when he was younger.
"I got off stage and he was like, 'I watched your whole set. It was really good.' And I was like, 'Oh, thanks! How do you keep coming up with new stuff? I'm working on new stuff and it's difficult,'" he continued. "And he goes, 'Jokes come and go, but swag is forever.' And guess who got that tattooed on his chest?" Davidson subsequently covered it with a portrait of the shark from Jaws.
03 of 24
Miley Cyrus
Miley Cyrus at the global premiere of 'Avatar: Fire And Ash' in 2025Credit: Kevin Winter/WireImage
The "Flowers" singer has admitted that she regrets about "80%" of her 50 tattoos. In particular, she feels odd about the portraits of her deceased cat and pitbull.
"I love my dog. But like, I don't know. Just having a pitbull in every picture for the rest of my life is kind of intense," she told the New York Times. Still, she's not going to get rid of them.
"I don't regret them enough to laser them," she said. "There's just a few I could do without."
04 of 24
Jelly Roll
Jelly Roll performs onstage during Superbloom Festival in 2025Credit: Joseph Okpako/WireImage
Rapper and country singer Jelly Roll has a massive amount of tattoos, and it looks like a massive amount of regret too.
Speaking to GQ, he admitted that "I regret 98% of these tattoos. 97% — almost all of them. Like, core philosophies that I rooted my life in when I was 17 and now I'm 40, I'm like 'What the f--- was I thinking?'"
05 of 24
Chance the Rapper
Chance the Rapper attends the 'Highest 2 Lowest' premiere in 2025Credit: Cindy Ord/WireImage
Despite having only one tattoo, Chance the Rapper wishes he hadn't gotten it. Speaking to Katie Couric in 2017, Chance confessed that it's a chest tattoo he got when he was 21 that says "Get back to work."
"It's so stupid, I hate it. No one's seen it," he told Couric, before revealing the tat to her. "It's a backwards tattoo. It's a mirror tattoo, which is a concept I created."
06 of 24
Demi Lovato
Demi Lovato in Los Angeles in 2026Credit: Julian Hamilton/WireImage
Demi Lovato once referred to her most-hated tattoo as the "vagina tattoo" — a pair of lips on her wrist that look too similar to that particular piece of female anatomy. It's been referred to by Lovato herself as "a spur of the moment, stupid decision."
She got it covered up in 2015 with a rose, but ended up in a feud with the original artist over the crude nomenclature.
07 of 24
Olivia Wilde
Olivia Wilde at the Fashion Trust U.S. Awards in 2026 in Los AngelesCredit: Amy Sussman/Getty
The Booksmart director's biggest tattoo regret is an "ass stamp" of a dragon on her right butt cheek. As she explained on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson in 2013, "I was in New York City and I thought it was a great idea, it had a lot of meaning at the time but now it's hideous."
08 of 24
Kal Penn
Kal Penn at the 2025 US Open Tennis Championships in 2025Credit: XNY/Star Max/GC Images
After learning about his genealogy while appearing on the show Finding Your Roots, Kal Penn got his maternal haplogroup R1A-M147, which represents his DNA ancestry, tattooed on his arm.
Unfortunately, when he ended up doing his own DNA test, he realized that the numbers were off: M417, not M147. In the end, he's chosen to keep the tat because, as he told Kelly Clarkson on her talk show, "it's a good story."
09 of 24
Hailey Bieber
Hailey Bieber at the 2026 Time100 Gala in New York CityCredit: TheStewartofNY/FilmMagic
The model has over 20 tattoos, but the one she wishes she could redo is a tiny gun on her middle finger that she had inked when she was a teenager.
In a 2021 interview with Elle, Bieber confessed that she would "never" get the tattoo today because she thinks "guns are violent."
"I was like, 'Yeah! That looks cool.' But now, as a 24-year-old, I would never do that," she said.
10 of 24
Justin Bieber
Justin Bieber attends the 64th Annual Grammy Awards in 2022Credit: Kevin Mazur/Getty
Hailey isn't the only Bieber who regrets a tattoo. Her husband Justin and his ex-girlfriend Selena Gomez were the couple of the moment during the 2010s. But when they called it quits, Bieber was left with a portrait of his ex on his arm.
He admitted to GQ that he's tried to have the tat covered up, but it hasn't been enough to hide the truth. "This is my ex-girlfriend, so I tried to cut her face up with some shading, but people still know," he said, pointing to the ink.
11 of 24
Jessica Alba
Jessica Alba at the 2025 Baby2Baby Gala in West Hollywood, CaliforniaCredit: Stefanie Keenan/Getty
Fantastic Four actress Jessica Alba told Refinery29 that she regrets "maybe two" of her tattoos: a bow on her lower back that's "kind of a tramp stamp," and some flowers on her neck that "I got when I was, like, 17 and I'm so irritated that I got it."
Despite her attempts to laser the latter off, it still appears faintly. "I got it lasered many times and it's not coming out," she says.
12 of 24
Jessie J
Jessie J at Capital's Jingle Bell Ball 2025 in London, EnglandCredit: Karwai Tang/WireImage
When the "Price Tag" singer got her own lyrics tattooed on her hip when she was 18, she made one tiny mistake: she spelled a word wrong. The ink reads, "Don't loose [sic] who you are in the blur of the stars."
She addressed the oopsie on Instagram, explaining, "Yes they are MY lyrics from my song who you are. Yes that I wrote. Yes I spelt [sic] the tattoo wrong. Yes I repeat it's spelt [sic] wrong. Yes I got it done in Essex. Yes the tattoo artist didn't mention it. Yes I was 18. Yes I still don't know the difference between lose and loose."
While she hasn't gotten rid of the tat, she does try to keep it hidden: "Yes it's the reason I wear everything high waisted."
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13 of 24
Ariana Grande
Ariana Grande at the AFI Awards Luncheon in Beverly Hills in 2026Credit: Emma McIntyre/WireImage
Ariana Grande wanted to get her song title "7 Rings" tattooed in Japanese characters on her palm, but what she actually got was something that translated to "tiny charcoal grill."
She tried to fix the mistake with a better translation, rendering the tattoo "slightly better," as she relayed on her Instagram Stories.
Unfortunately, as a Japanese speaker revealed to PEOPLE, the translation still isn't right: from left to right it reads "small charcoal grill," and from top to bottom it reads "seven fingers."
14 of 24
Khloe Kardashian
Khloe Kardashian at Hulu's Get Real House in Los AngelesCredit: Nisha Johny/Disney via Getty
The Kardashian had not one, but two tramp stamps on her lower back: a cross, and a tribute to her late father, Robert Kardashian, above it. However, she got rid of them both.
In an Instagram post about her removal process, she wrote, "I should've listened to Kim when she told me 'You don't put a bumper sticker on a Bentley.' Bye-bye bumper sticker!!! Thank you Dr Ourian!!!! You are the best!"
15 of 24
Kaley Cuoco
Kaley Cuoco at the 31st Annual Critics Choice Awards in 2026Credit: Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty
The Big Bang Theory actress' back tattoo commemorating her brief marriage to ex-husband Ryan Sweeting got the cover-up treatment. Replacing the Roman numerals of their wedding date is now a giant moth.
The significance? "The significance is it was big enough to cover the numbers," Cuoco joked on Ellen.
16 of 24
Jennifer Lawrence
Jennifer Lawrence at the 83rd Annual Golden Globe Awards in 2026Credit: Amy Sussman/Getty
Even small tattoos can come with big regret, which Jennifer Lawrence knows all too well. The Die My Love actress got the chemical formula for water, H2O, on her wrist. However, she learned that the notation wasn't quite right.
She explained the story to HitFix: "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."
"By the way," she continued, "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."
17 of 24
Nicole Richie
Nicole Richie at the 2025 Academy Museum in Los AngelesCredit: Taylor Hill/FilmMagic
Nicole Richie got quite a few tattoos during her wild youth, but now, she wishes she hadn't gotten some. Speaking to Into The Gloss, she said, "I have a few tattoos, but I haven't gotten a new one since I was 21. I was a 19-year-old idiot when I got this tattoo on the back of my neck," which is a red ribbon with her last name.
On her AOL web series #CandidlyNicolein 2013, Richie had pursued getting her "butt crack cross" tattoo removed.
18 of 24
Megan Fox
Megan Fox in Las Vegas in 2024Credit: Jerod Harris/Getty
Megan Fox went through the particularly unpleasant process of having her Marilyn Monroe forearm tattoo removed. It happened as a result of learning about Monroe's mental health struggles and not wanting to attract "negative energy."
Speaking with Italian magazine Amica, per The Independent in 2011, she said, "I'm removing it. It is a negative character, as she suffered from personality disorders and was bipolar. I do not want to attract this kind of negative energy in my life."
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However, as she explained on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, the removal process was "traumatic and incredibly painful."
19 of 24
Adam Levine
Adam Levine performing onstage at The Kia Forum in 2025Credit: Monica Schipper/Getty
When probed by Anderson Cooper in 2012 about whether he regrets any of his tattoos, "She Will Be Loved" singer Adam Levine replied that while he would never cover any of them up, he doesn't particularly like the Russian prisoner-style tattoo on his right shoulder.
Since he's not a Russian prisoner, he couldn't get a real one. Instead, he got a "horrible, bastardized version of that."
"It's hideous," he added. And while he attempted to surround it with better tattoos, all that did was make it "even worse."
"It looks kind of like a cauliflower with a sun in the middle of it," he said.
20 of 24
Kelly Osbourne
Kelly Osbourne at The Serpentine Gallery Summer Party in 2025Credit: Mike Marsland/WireImage
Ultimately, Sharon and Ozzy's daughter Kelly Osbourne regrets a number of her tattoos, referring to them as "mistakes" in her Closer column in 2010.
"Some still have a special meaning, like the matching ones my brother Jack and I have of each other's names, but I now feel like some were a mistake," adding that she planned to have these mistakes removed.
"I met with my dermatologist and I'll start the laser treatment as soon as I have time. It will take several months, and while I'm not looking forward to the pain, I've heard it hurts less than getting the tattoo. I hope so!"
21 of 24
Adrienne Bailon-Houghton
Adrienne Bailon-Houghton at the 2023 Billboard Women In Music eventCredit: Amy Sussman/WireImage
While Cheetah Girl Adrienne Bailon-Houghton was dating Rob Kardashian in the mid-2000s, she got a tattoo of his name on her butt. Nearly a decade later, she described the ink as "ratchet" on her talk show The Real.
"I don't know what I was thinking," she said candidly. However, at the time she admitted she was in the process of getting it removed — which she didn't find fun.
"It does not feel good. You could smell your flesh burning," she told her co-hosts.
22 of 24
Nicki Minaj
Nicki Minaj performs onstage during her Pink Friday 2 World Tour at Madison Square Garden in 2024Credit: Kevin Mazur/Getty
Rapper Nicki Minaj sports a large Chinese character tattoo on her arm that translates to "God is with me always," which she got when she was 16. However, in an interview with Billboard, she admitted that she doesn't love it, saying she was "way too young" when she got it.
"You have no idea what you want to put on your body at the age of 16," she said. "You need to wait until at least 21 and decide."
23 of 24
Britney Spears
Britney SpearsCredit: Phillip Faraone/FilmMagic
In a 2020 Instagram post, Britney Spears posted a selfie with the pink dice tattoo on her left wrist visible. The caption read, "Albert Einstein once said 'God does not play dice with the universe' …. 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 ?!?!!!!"
The "Hit Me Baby One More Time" singer got the tattoo with her ex-husband, Kevin Federline, so maybe it makes sense that she no longer feels affection for it.
24 of 24
Pharrell
Pharrell Williams at the Sacai Menswear Spring/Summer 2025 show at Paris Fashion Week in 2024Credit: Antoine Flament/Getty
"Happy" singer Pharrell Williams told Complex in 2012 that he was in the process of removing all the tattoos he acquired when he was younger, saying he was "young and dumb."
"I ended up getting them as fast as I could, just going through a really crazy rebellious period," he said.
on Entertainment Weekly
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