Ariana Grande fell prey to the oldest tattoo fail in the book: she got a kanji tattoo. With incorrect Japanese characters.
The pop star paid tribute to her single “7 Rings” by getting the characters ?? tattooed on the palm of her hand. This roughly translates to “7 rounds” or “7 wheels,” in Chinese, but social media immediately pointed out that the Japanese Kanji translation is “shichirin,” which is a small Japanese-style charcoal grill.
Grande posted, then quickly deleted a picture of her new tattoo to Instagram. You can see it via her official Japanese Twitter:
【Instagramより】
アリアナがまた日本語のタトゥーを追加!今度はなんと漢字で「七輪」😳
「みんなこれは私の手じゃないって思っているみたいだけど、本当に私の手よ🥺」とコメントしています。
「七つの指輪」を略して「七輪」かな🤔💭とても気に入っているよう💍#アリアナ pic.twitter.com/wR55jgu7FU— アリアナ・グランデ JP公式 (@ariana_japan) January 30, 2019
The pop star’s record-breaking music video for ‘7 Rings’ featured the correct Japanese translation of “7 Rings”: ?????. Separately, the kanji character ? means “seven,” and ? means “hoop”/”circle”/”ring.” But when put together, ?? (shichirin) just means “small charcoal grill.”
Ariana Grande’s new tattoo “七輪” means Japanese style bbq grill, not 7 rings. 😭 If you want to know about 七輪, just google “SHICHIRIN” pic.twitter.com/HuQM2EwI62
— *amo* (@hey__amo) January 30, 2019
Grande later addressed the tattoo on Twitter, admitting that she’d left off most of the characters because “it hurt like f*ck” and she “wouldn’t have lasted another symbol.”
“It still looks tight,” wrote the pop star, adding that she’s a “huge fan of tiny bbq grills.”
https://twitter.com/PopAlarms/status/1090489236191498241
For many, Grande’s insistence that the tattoo “still looks tight” reinforced the idea that culture and language is a disposable aesthetic to the pop star.
https://twitter.com/ramennshaw/status/1090457859391873024
https://twitter.com/RyeowooksThighs/status/1090477718435639296
https://twitter.com/leoyolk/status/1090475564450775041
https://twitter.com/Channievv/status/1090465864460238848
https://twitter.com/floorb6/status/1090595913549135873
https://twitter.com/brimstonebitch/status/1090595950240899072
https://twitter.com/ameIiesIacroix/status/1090457877255315456
Though others just reveled in the ultimate schadenfreude.
I'M SCREAMING did ariana grande really tattoo the japanese kanji of bbq grill on her hand SIS…. 💀
— bria🍳UPDATES SLOW (@idkbria) January 30, 2019
https://twitter.com/taeyten/status/1090470865777508355
https://twitter.com/jinsO_Oul/status/1090458179165736960
https://twitter.com/frdegama/status/1090556380459737088
Grande literally has folks in Japan operating a Twitter account for her—next time, it would behoove her to send shoot them a text to double check her translations.