Singer Kelsy Karter who recently showed off a large tattoo of Harry Styles on her face has revealed it’s a fake.
The ambitious young singer from New Zealand caused a stir earlier this week when she shared pictures of her “tattoo” on Instagram, captioning the post, “mama, look what i made me do.”
On Thursday, Jan. 31, she revealed the tattoo was actually a fake. The singer explained the thought process behind the deception in a YouTube video titled, “How I rocked the entire world for $300.”
She said she’d being going through “the hardest time of my life.” Karter and her band ended up recording a song, “Harry,” and filming a retro music video for just $300.
However, she realized that to make a splash on the world scene she’d have to do something attention-grabbing. “What would the rock legends that inspired me have done in 2019?” she wrote in her video. And so she came up with the idea, “Let’s tattoo Harry Style’s face….on my face.”
“To pull this off, we needed a celebrity tattoo artist to make it look real….So we called Romeo,” she wrote, referring to world famous tattoo artist Romeo Lacoste, whose clientele includes Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber, and Zhavia.
“He traced Harry’s 2017 ‘Rolling Stone’ cover, applied it to my face, and then a special FX makeup artist did her thing,” Karter explained. The special effects makeup artist can be seen in the video painting on the fake tattoo, even adding red color to her skin to make it look like she had gone under the needle.
“BTW. We know it looked ridiculous. That was the point,” Karter added.
Karter’s stunt seemed to have worked. “That photo was EVERYWHERE!” she wrote. “Every major publication and news outlet in the world covered the story. And more importantly the song. I had your attention.”
LINK IN BIO. https://t.co/6jnaOANjui
— Kelsy Karter (@KelsyKarter) January 28, 2019
However, with the fame, Karter was forced to hide out at her manager’s house for three days and ignore messages from friends and family, which she addressed in her video.
Eventually, the requests to see her face tattoo in person became too much, and it was time to reveal the lie.
“The tattoo was not real,” she admitted. “The tattoo is gone. All that’s left is the music. Which is what my rockstar team and I had planned all along.”
She’d hinted something was in the works to honor Styles for his 25th birthday on Feb. 1 when she tweeted, “Finally know what I’m getting Harry for his birthday….”
Finally know what I’m getting Harry for his birthday….
— Kelsy Karter (@KelsyKarter) January 18, 2019
However, the “tattoo” wasn’t the gift, it was actually her song “Harry.”
In the song, Karter sings, “Harry, I’m gonna make you love me/You’re gonna make me breakfast/It’s a secret just between us/We can keep it low-key/I ain’t being funny/You should be so lucky to put your velvet arms around me.”
“The song says it all doesn’t it?” Karter told Billboard after the song’s release. She also spoke about embracing her love for Styles and shared how he has served as a musical influence in her career. “It’s just my ode to him, I guess. I think he’s amazing and, come on, he’s like the best person on the planet.”
