Dave Bautista is opening up about his "embarrassing" first tattoo.
The 55-year-old professional wrestler-turned-actor, who has a massive collection of ink, stopped by Live with Kelly and Mark on Tuesday, July 16 to promote his new movie, My Spy The Eternal City. During the conversation, Ripa asked Bautista if he ever considered removing any of his tattoos.
"I’ve thought about it and then I’ve just gotten cover-ups instead," the actor replied. "It’s a real nightmare to get tattoos removed. They burn them off."
Bautista then shared that he covered up his very first tattoo. When Ripa, 53, asked him to share the story, he said, "Oh man, I'm instantly sweating."
He continued, "I will preface this by saying it was the 80s and it was my first tattoo. I lived in DC, I was in Arlington, Virginia. I went to this place called Rick’s Tattoo. It was this old biker named Rick... I picked out the tattoo and told him I wanted it on my butt. I wanted it on my butt so my dad wouldn’t see it and kill me. So I got it on my butt."
The Dune star shared that the biker shaved his butt before asking if he was sure about the placement of the tattoo. "I was like, ‘Yeah.’ And he put it on," he recalled. -
"And, I’m so embarrassed. It was this really cheesy heart that said, ‘Heart of Stone.’ I thought I was a tough guy with a tough tattoo. And I regretted it immediately. But I got razzed so bad in the WWE for that tattoo."
He explained that he ended up covering it up with a cherry blossom tree. "I said, ‘Just cover it up. I don’t care just cover it up,'" Bautista said.
The actor also revealed that he has one tattoo that he left unfinished because it was too painful.
"I have a tattoo on my leg that I got maybe 15 years ago that I never got finished cause it hurt so bad," he said, adding that he "started drinking" during the tattoo process due to the pain.
He continued, "It’s on my leg but it’s when he got up to the back of my knee where it became so painful that I actually kicked him out of my house. I said, ‘Dude, I can’t take it anymore.’"
In May, Bautista shared a photo of himself as a teenager, before he had any tattoos.
“Throwing it back to 16-year-old me, beach bod and all. Nice view!#ThrowbackThursday,” he captioned an Instagram post, which included a photo of his younger self in red trunks and sporting an '80s hairstyle.
Related Articles
Follow Us