14 DAY TRIAL // Kimberley Vlaminck, an 18-year-old teen from Belgium, is suing a Romanian tattoo artist for inking 56 stars on her face despite the fact that she only asked for 3 little ones, The Post Chronicle says. The girl claims she fell asleep during the procedure, and is now taking legal action against the artist in the hope that a court will award her the cost of having all 56 stars removed.
In spite of ongoing speculation in the international media that Vlaminck simply made a bad call on a drunken night, clearly a decision she does not want to take responsibility for, the girl insists it’s the tattoo artist who’s to blame. Because he’s a foreigner, he must not have understood what she told him, since he only spoke broken French and English, Vlaminck says of Rouslan Toumaniantz.
To add insult to injury, the teen states, she also fell asleep after telling the tattoo artist what she wanted to have done on her face. When she woke up, though, she saw with the utmost dismay that Toumaniantz had inked 56 stars spreading over half her face instead of the three little ones she had asked to have done under her eye. Now, Vlaminck is asking the court to force the tattoo artist to pay for laser removal of the stars, meaning to award her an estimated £10,000. As a side note, she paid somewhere around £50 for the 3-star tattoo she asked.
In his defense, Toumaniantz says that he did exactly what he was told to do, namely a face tattoo made of 56 stars. According to him, the girl knew exactly what she wanted and she made it clear right the moment she crossed his threshold. Even more, she did not fall asleep during the procedure (how could she when she must have been in severe pain, the artist asks) and he clearly did not drug her as she hinted in one interview. He does not plan on paying for her laser removal surgery because, as far as he’s concerned, he did nothing wrong.
“She was awake and looked into the mirror several times as the procedure was taking place. The trouble all started when she went home and her father and boyfriend threw a fit. They are saying things now like I doped her or hypnotized her. What rubbish! She asked for 56 stars and that’s what she got.” the heavily-tattooed and pierced Tounamiantz explains in a press statement just released. If it so happens that the girl now looks like a “freak” and is ashamed of coming out of the house, it’s because this is what she wanted, the tattoo artist adds.