14 DAY TRIAL // Here’s a clear example of why you should strive not to do stupid stuff when you’re drunk, especially on a dare: a 35-year-old man from Grimsby, UK, Lee, got drunk one night out with friends and had 3 wonky tears tattooed on his face in printer ink. His life was never the same after that.
Lee’s case is just one of the cases presented by Katie Piper on the new season of Channel 4’s Bodyshockers: Nips, Tucks and Tattoos reality show, which deals with surprising and shocking body transformations. His case serves as a sad cautionary tale of how you can make one reckless thing and then see your entire life fall apart because of it.
One night can ruin everything
The Daily Record has a video of Lee’s interview with Katie, in which he talks about the way his life was turned upside down the next morning, as he woke from his drunken stupor to see the tears etched on his face.
He recalls how they all laughed the night before, when one of the guys told them he could build a tattoo gun out of spare stuff they had lying around, and how he volunteered to get ink done when he was done assembling it.
However, he never imagined he would get the tattoos on such a visible part of his body as his face, or that he’d be stupid enough to get them in printer ink. After all, since they were just a bunch of guys having a laugh, they didn’t have actual ink for tattoos at their disposal.
The next day, when Lee looked in the mirror, he no longer recognized the man he’d become because of one stupid gesture. That day, when he got to work, he was let go – and he hasn’t been able to get a job since.
“I went from a hard-working father to unemployed overnight,” he says. “Interviewers [for jobs] say ‘I don't think you'd be quite right for this position’ and I know it's because of my face. It looks like an alien sneezed on my face.”
Actually, saying that the tattoos look like an alien sneezed on his face is a bit of an understatement.
Desperate gestures to have the ink removed
Until he was featured on the show, Lee didn’t have the money for laser removal surgery, so he had no other option but to contemplate a life of people avoiding him, not having a job or even friends anymore.
Tired of seeing how people (and women in particular) would cross the street to the other side when he happened to pass by, Lee tried several things to have the tear tattoos removed at home, including rubbing a nutmeg grater and then a cheese grater on the skin.
When he used the cheese grater, he tells Katie, he bled so profusely that he assumed the printer ink would also come out. It didn’t.
Producers for the show have paid for Lee’s laser removal surgery, and he says he’s agreed to go on the record with his story in the hope of preventing others from making the same mistake as him.