Selena Gomez is collecting ink! Although the 29-year-old actress, singer, producer, and businesswoman rarely goes crazy with the size of her tattoos and tends to keep them small and cute, this time, she chose a more prominent design on her upper back.
Keith Scott “Bang Bang” McCurdy, a celebrity tattoo artist based in New York, known for his work with Rihanna, Cara Delevingne, Katy Perry, Justin Bieber, LeBron James, Adele, Miley Cyrus, Kylie Jenner, and more, took social media to share a snapshot of Selena posing in a moody ambiance.
© Keith Scott Bang Bang McCurdyThe blackwork piece goes from the star’s neck, trailing between her shoulder blades. The new ink is Gomez’s 16th tattoo.
Selena started decorating her body in 2012. The “Baila Conmigo” singer inked a tiny music note on her wrist, and after that, she fell in love and started accumulating other small pieces. “It‘s a music note,” Gomez told Access Hollywood. “Everybody thought that it was a heart for some reason, but music is a big influence in my life.”
© GettyImages“I was named after a singer, I’m a singer, and a lot of other personal reasons,” she explained, referring to the late Selena Quintanilla.
Her second tattoo reads “LXXVI,” and Bang Bang is the artist behind it. According to him, “the tattoo was a tribute to a family member who she said means a lot to her.“ Later shared the ink with the caption, ”1976.“ It is believed that the tattoo is a tribute to her mom Mandy Teefey, born in 1976.
© GettyImagesGomez added another piece in her thigh that reads, “God who strengthens me,” according to the star, is an interpretation from her favorite Bible passage, Philippians 4:13.
The founder of Rare Beauty later honored her little sister Gracie, born in 2013, by tattooing a “G” on her neck, and then got a tattoo that reads “Love Yourself First” written in Arabic on the upper-right side of her back. During her HBO Max cooking show, Selena + Chef, she revealed that she did it after a fan asked her to love herself before anyone else.
© GettyImagesSelena also has a symbol on her left hip honoring one of her best friends. Gomez told Refinery29 that it was a date. The publication revealed that it “represents when she met one of her best friends eight years ago.”
She later added the word “sunshine” on her right foot and a semicolon of her wrist to represent mental health awareness and suicide prevention. Gomez got the tattoo alongside Alisha Boe (who played Hannah’s ex-BFF Jessica) and Tommy Dorfman (who played poet Ryan Shaver) after becoming the executive producer of the Netflix series “13 Reasons Why.”
© GettyImages“Project semicolon is a movement dedicated to presenting hope for those suffering from depression, thoughts of suicide, addiction, and self-injury,” Boe wrote on Instagram.
Gomez has several matching tattoos. She inked a “1” on the right side of her rib cage with Courtney Lopez and tatted a “4” with her three closest friends — Lopez, Ashley Cook, and Raquelle Stevens.
“#4 because these women have stayed by my side for 7 years,” she wrote in her caption. “4, because you are my 4 for the rest of my life. I love you ladies. You all inspire me to be better, stronger, closer to god and we have lived the most INSANE story together already. Can’t wait for 50 more!!” Selena also got matching arrows with Julia Michaels in 2019.
For the first time, in 2019, Selena Gomez put the tiny tattoos to rest and got inked her biggest yet. The star got prayer hands on her left thigh. Once again, the design was inked by Bang Bang.
Selena then returned to small art and inked the date she underwent her kidney transplant. She also got the word “Rare” on her neck, a tiny cross on her left collarbone to represent her spirituality.
“I‘m very, very spiritual,” she revealed to Vogue. “I believe in God, but I’m not religious. I‘ve been a Christian for a while now. I don’t talk about it too much — I want to, but it‘s gotten a bad rep. I just want to make it clear that I love being able to have my faith and believe in what I believe in, and that truly is what gets me through.”
