Worst Tattoos Ever

The tattoo is a funny thing. What was once considered either a sign of toughness or gang affiliation is now as common as a pair of blue jeans. But, for something so permanent, many people make some awful decisions on what to put on their body for life (or at least until very painful surgery). With fat blowhard Rex Ryan once again making the papers for something other than saying something stupid (although he did that too), we thought it was a good time to take a look at some of the most misguided decisions ever made in a tattoo parlor that didn't involve scoring crystal meth from an undercover agent posing as a tattoo artist.


The Game's Butterfly tat:

There are many things that are annoying about Compton rapper and one-time G-unit member turned G-unit enemy, The Game: He can't rap two lines without name-dropping another rapper or Dr. Dre, he's a proud member of the Bloods and never shuts up about it, he was on lame 90s dating show Change of Heart, and on and on. Possibly, the cheesiest thing he ever did, though, was tattoo a butterfly ON HIS FACE. Yeah, butterfly tattoos aren't gangsta, my mother could tell you that. To make matters worse, instead of owning up to it, and saying "screw it, I'm so tough I will walk around with a 15 year old girl's first ankle tattoo on my cheek, and what?", he almost immediately had it changed to a red 5 point star (a Blood symbol) and eventually the Dodgers logo. Nice try, asshole.

Richard Jefferson's RJ tattoo:

If you've ever heard the Spurs small forward speak, you know he's about as corny as Uncle Joey from Full House, but in case you haven't, just take a look at his left shoulder. Cut it out. It's bad enough that homeboy was so unimaginative, he just threw his own initials on his body, but it looks like he copied it off of a 5th grader's trapper keeper, complete with the basketball in the R and the super lame "explosion" lines around the letters. R.J. comes across as pillow soft (he was raised by missionaries) but the tattoo that looks like the cover to a Judy Blume novel only confirms things.

Gucci Mane's Ice Cream Cone face tat (see above):
Gucci ain't no sucker. He's in and out of jail more often than DMX and did time for murdering one of Young Jeezy's goons over a song. I guess with street cred like that, you can tattoo whatever the hell you want on yourself, but that ice cream cone could make even the most hardened southern thug seem as soft as Fudgie the Whale. Gucci's whole shtick involves cold stuff (his catchprase is BRRRRRR) so it kind of makes sense in a warped sort of way, in I guess the same way that this cover makes sense. GUCCI!

Deshawn Stevenson's Abe Lincoln:

When I first saw mediocre at best Mavs shooting guard DeShawn Stevenson's throat tattoo I thought it was mediocre at best. I figured he must hail from a rough city named Lincoln or his zip code had a 5 in it, or he's a civil war historian. Naaah, he just likes Lincoln because he freed the slaves. Black civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. or Malcolm X are so played out, after all. Never mind Abe probably gave two shits about black people, and probably secretly told monkey jokes behind their back (this is almost definitely true). I just can't wait until LeBron gets that John Wilkes Booth on his neck.

Kobe's Branding:

Less a tattoo than a branding on his arm from his put upon wife (that whole rape thing) Kobe's tattoo isn't really all that bad stylistically, but the meaning behind it is as bad as it gets. After that Colorado incident, Kobe pulled out all the stops to get his wife not to leave with half his fortune. He bought her a Lamborghini, which he paid extra to be automatic, he cried at press conferences and he got this big doofy tat on his arm of his wife's name with a crown. Yeah, you can tell most whipped guys by the fact that they're carrying their wife's purse or they're at a John Mayer concert with her, but nothing beats permanent ink on your arm of her name with a crown atop it to really stress the fact that your balls have been permanently put in a jar and placed on your woman's mantle. Damn you, Colorado hotel manager for being so enticing!

Tom Arnold's Roseanne:

Imagine sleeping with Roseanne Barr in the late 80s. Her big, sweaty rolls of fat rubbed up against you, the imprint from the stretch waist band on her acid wash mom jeans still visible, her nasally screech drilling a hole in your brain. Now, imagine you wanted to remember this occasion for eternity, and tattoo that fat face on your chest. Needless to say, Tom Arnold has admitted to a massive drug problem in the late 80s.

Mike Tyson's Tribal face tattoo:

Mike is a trendsetter. Before face tattoos were all the rage among rappers and basketball players, they were strictly the domain of the worst of society; crank addicts and gang bangers, you didn't want to run into someone with a face tattoo in broad daylight, never mind a dark alley somewhere. Mike's tattoo has opened the flood gates for awful tats, it's so iconic it's even been parodied in shitty movies that Mike made cameo appearances in and was basically the cherry on top of the shit show sundae that Tyson has become.