You can rarely ever guess what Ariana Grande's next tattoo is going to be. These past six months alone, she's gotten a Pokémon, a beautiful celestial design, and an anime character. But this latest tattoo on the pop singer really, seriously, honestly might top all the others in terms of unpredictability.
To begin this story, we have to start to with what Grande intended to get. With her bop "7 Rings" at the top of the charts, Grande met up with tattoo artist Kane Navasard to get the Japanese translation of "7 Rings" tatted on the palm of her hand, which is a notoriously painful spot to get inked.
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In typical Grande fashion, she then flaunted it on Instagram, and that's when she was faced with a bitter truth.
You see, her new hand tattoo doesn't translate exactly as intended. In Chinese, the phrase she got roughly translates to "7 rounds" or "7 wheels." But as Twitter and Instagram commenters were quick to point out, the Japanese Kanji translation of that phrase is actually "shichirin," which is a Japanese-style barbecue grill.
Ariana Grande’s new tattoo “七輪” means Japanese style bbq grill, not 7 rings. ? If you want to know about 七輪, just google “SHICHIRIN” pic.twitter.com/HuQM2EwI62
— *amo* (@hey__amo) January 30, 2019
Twitter, as expected, has been having a field day.
Ariana Grande got 七輪 tattooed on her hand thinking it means ‘7 rings’ I CAN’T BREATHE
— ?? (@pjmjjk) January 30, 2019
Imagine getting bbq grill tattooed on your palm
— EBEN (@EbenOfficial) January 30, 2019
But there's actually even more to this story. As Grande explained on Twitter, she made the decision to leave some of the characters out. "Indeed, I left out 'つの指' which should have gone in between," she wrote. "It hurt like fuck... I wouldn’t have lasted one more symbol."
Ariana Grande clarifies that she left out some letters off her tattoo because the pain was intolerable and says she’s a huge fan of tiny bbq grills which is one of the things her tattoo translates to! pic.twitter.com/SC1z4SSefW
— Pop Alarms ? (@PopAlarms) January 30, 2019
She then jokingly added, "Also…. huge fan of tiny bbq grills." (To be honest, who isn't?) The superstar also faced speculation that the hand itself wasn't hers — which she also dispelled. ("everyone thinks this is a fake hand but it’s indeed... my hand" she later clarified in a caption.)
— m (@hmtmakaila) January 30, 2019
As this conversation continues to swirl around the internet, however, Grande is facing some backlash from those who take offense to her being relatively fine having an incorrect translation on her hand, with one user writing, "She literally just admitted to only seeing Japanese as an aesthetic." This also comes at a time when more celebs are choosing to get tattoos of Japanese characters, with Maisie Williams recently getting four Japanese characters that roughly translate to "reason for being," on her ribcage.
As of Wednesday morning, Grande's chosen to delete the original image of the tattoo off her Instagram, so now we're left wondering: Does this means yet another cover-up tattoo for the pop star?