Celebrities are always in the spotlight- it comes as part of the package. Barely a day goes by where there isn’t a story on how a star has dressed or what they have done. Unfortunately for celebs, the public always has an opinion on these stories- good and bad.
When you’re in the public eye, your tattoos don’t go unnoticed either, and it’s hardly surprising that some of the best-known tattoos belong to sports stars. We see them so often that we’re bound to catch a glimpse of their ink. In fact, sometimes we recognise the tattoo before we recognise the player. Betting aggregator Compare.Bet commissioned a survey of 2,000 Brits to see what they thought of some of the most famous tattoos out there. Let’s take a look at what they thought.
Brits’ favourite celebrity tattoos
David Beckham takes the top spot for favourite tattoo- a huge 21% of survey participants believe his are the best. Beckham’s tattoos are more than your run-of-the-mill ink of choice, with the solar system, Jesus and a guardian angel featuring among his 40+ tattoos.
Lewis Hamilton, Anthony Joshua and Lionel Messi were among the other top contenders, each taking just over 10% of the vote.
What makes an acceptable tattoo?
The British public believe it’s most acceptable for celebs to have tattoos of their children’s names and faces, which is perhaps why David Beckham’s are viewed so favourably. Memorable career moments were next on the list, though tattoos inspired by celebs’ mothers were also acceptable- explaining Hamilton, Joshua and Messi’s position on the top list.
Our least favourite celebrity tattoos
Unsurprisingly, the public had pretty strong views about which tattoos weren’t acceptable, with over half of Brits against tattoos of guns. Given the uproar surrounding Raheem Sterling’s tattoos, this doesn’t come as a shock – people were even calling for him to be dropped from the England squad. However, we also have strong opinions on where celebs have their tattoos – over 50% of Brits declared the face the worst place for a tattoo, which explains why Mike Tyson takes second position for the worst tattoo in this survey.
The survey found that most Brits believed these stars had tattoos as a means of showing off, above anything else, over a quarter had used these tattoos as inspiration for their own. Opinion was split on whether the public respected these stars more with or without tattoos, but most were in agreement that professional athletes tend to overdo it with tattoos nowadays- especially footballers.
In fact, Compare.bet spokesman said that, “With so many athletes having tattoos, it can sometimes even be hard to work out whose is whose.” Think you can tell celeb tatts apart? Take the Compare.bet quiz to see how you fare!