14 DAY TRIAL // By now, Justin Bieber has so many tattoos that it’s difficult, if not downright impossible, to keep count of all of them. However, of the lot, two in particular, which he got just days after he was arrested for DUI and drag racing earlier this year, stand out because they were done at an altitude of 40,000 feet.
In fact, the teen heartthrob is hoping to get his name into the Guinness Book of World Records with this, the tattoo artist who did the two tattoos, Bang Bang, tells the New York Daily News.
Bang Bang is so famous for the work he’s done on some of the biggest stars right now that he’s almost a celebrity himself. Some of the stars who rock Bang Bang tattoos include Katy Perry, Adele and Rihanna. Both he and Rihanna were harshly criticized when he did her gun tattoo, on her ribcage, right after the Chris Brown assault because, it was said, she was glamorizing violence with it.
Bang Bang is just as in-demand as always and, by the looks of it, determined to prove he could do things no other tattoo artist is capable of, like getting someone inked at 40,000 in the air.
Above is a photo of Justin Bieber’s latest works: a cross in the middle of his chest, which took about 30 minutes to make, and the word “Forgive” on the side of his abdomen, which took another 15 minutes. The meaning of the latter was explained by Bieber in a text message this way: “Forgiveness is powerful, forgive as Jesus died on the cross to forgive our sins.”
Bang Bang explains that everyone else but Justin and himself were asleep when the tattoos were being done, and that Justin came up with the idea. The execution of it was a bit more difficult than they’d anticipated.
“It was really difficult. The plane was shaking, so it’s like trying to do a tattoo while you’re driving over rocks... and so I have to compensate and be so, so accurate. I’ve gotta admit that my adrenaline was through the roof. I didn’t anticipate it would be so difficult,” the artist says.
“It was extremely bumpy and the pilot would call back to us and say ‘Hey we’ve got a little bit of turbulence coming up.’ We were trying to find the pockets when the plane was smooth. This was the most difficult tattoo I’ve ever done for sure,” he continues.
Hopefully, this will pay off when the Guinness Book of World Records gets back to him and tells him their feat will be recognized as the world’s highest altitude tattoo.
“I’m trying to see if we broke a record because we filmed it and documented it, it would be a cool record to have broken, the highest altitude tattoo. I’ve heard that somebody did a tattoo on an airplane once, but normal airlines fly 33-35,000 feet and we were at 40,000 feet so I think we might have done the highest altitude tattoo ever. It was fun and we felt like we did something nobody had ever done,” he gushes.