In a recent interview with James Corden on The Late Late Show to promote her new film, Our Friend, Dakota Johnson got on the get-to-know-you topic of tattoos and piercings — during which she admitted to having nearly a dozen tattoos. She also revealed a matching piercing she and her mom, Melanie Griffith, got when Johnson was a teenager.
"My mom took me to get my first tattoo," Johnson told Cordon with a laugh. "She also took me to get my belly-button pierced when I was 14 and she also got her belly-button pierced." While Griffith was game to be by her daughter's side and even share in a bit of teenage rebellion herself, Johnson's father, actor Don Johnson, wasn’t as thrilled with the idea. "He said that if I ever got a tattoo he would disown me," the actress explained before revealing the clever way she got around her father's aversion: Johnson’s first-ever tattoo was one of her dad's favorite sayings that he taught her as a child. The symbolic ink, which reads "actions not words," is located on the inside of her left arm, and Johnson says she now sees it as "just silly," dubbing it "too serious."
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Since then, Johnson has amassed "11 or 12" tattoos, by her estimate. Corden seemed to be shocked to learn that the actress, whose tattoos are on the smaller side and often hidden, had that many. "I’m not a tattoo fiend," she insisted. "It’s 2021. That is conservative." Compared to other celebrities — such as Hailey Bieber, who has over 20 tattoos or Ariana Grande’s more than 30 — Johnson has a point.
When Corden asked if belly-button piercings were still in, Johnson didn't sound too eager about it, and she was quick to add that she no longer has the piercing. The ‘90s and early 2000s may be the height of trendy right now, but the navel piercing sounds like something Johnson would rather leave in her teenage years — though no word on whether her mom's ended up sticking around.