Adam Levine shows off his mermaid-angel back tattoo: gross, tacky or cool?

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I don’t love or hate tattoos. I don’t personally have any tatts, but when someone has some good ink, I enjoy it. I don’t think tattoos are inherently trashy, and yet some tattoos definitely do add to a trashy vibe on SOME people. Like, I enjoy a lot of Angelina Jolie’s ink, but I think her periodic table tattoo (or whatever it is) was a mistake.

Anyway, Adam Levine has had lots of tattoos for years and years. I think most of ink – on his arms – looks really good. His sleeves are good-quality work. But Adam was not content with just getting inked on his arms. He’s spent the last six months getting an epic tattoo on his back. And he showed off the new work on his Instagram:

6 months in the making. Thanks @bryanrandolph for absolutely blowing my mind with this one! Woooo hooooo!!!!

A photo posted by Adam Levine (@adamlevine) on

Is this tacky? Trashy? Cool? Amazing? Good quality? I have no idea. But I kind of think if you’re going to spend all that time, money and effort into this kind of epic full-back tattoo, it should represent something that’s really important to you. And how is a cross-eyed angel-mermaid with a skull something that’s really important?

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Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet, Instagram.

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31 Responses to “Adam Levine shows off his mermaid-angel back tattoo: gross, tacky or cool?”

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  1. vickie says:

    I like it all except the face of the angel/mermaid. And I personally have a couple that are not on display and very personal to me, but I can not stand when people call them tats.

    • Die Zicke says:

      I agree. The face is terrible but the rest of the composition is pretty cool.

      • saras says:

        Lol the mermaid has resting “meh” face! Retro sailor tattoo fail…

      • Brasileira says:

        Yeah.. at first, I really want to like the tattoo, but then, you look at the mermaid and, all is wrong with her. Where’s the neck? Why didn’t she sleep and her eyes are so dark all around? The hell is with that hand? With all this money, couldn’t he get a winner in the Ink Master to make him a decent tattoo? This wouldn’t pass the second phase of the show.

    • Shambles says:

      Out of all the things that make Adam Levine gross and tacky, his tattoos are not actually on the list. I will begrudgingly give him credit for the fact that he gets pretty good tattoos (which is what one should do because you’re investing in an art piece that you’ll carry around for the rest of your natural life), unlike the monstrosities we see on folks like Gaga and Ed Sheeran.

    • cd3 says:

      Why does it bother you to have them called “tats”? I’m genuinely asking.

  2. Abbicci says:

    If the question is Adam Levine the answer is always gross.

  3. swak says:

    The face on the angel/mermaid and skull are just off for some reason. This was not bad but also not amazing.

  4. missmerry says:

    sorry, but that is not a good tattoo.

    6 months for that?
    and with the ‘fame’ and money that guy has, he couldn’t book a better artist?

    I’m always horrified at how bad celeb tattoos are.

    ps – fyeahtattoos.com don’t show celebrity tattoos per se, but the work they feature is 100x better than this tattoo.

  5. Allie says:

    I find it weird that people think tattoos should always mean something. Why can’t I just get something because I think it looks cool? You’re not gonna live forever.

    • Wren says:

      Exactly! Tattoos need not have Meaning with a capital M. The only requirement is that you like them.

      Mine have meaning to me that nobody else would give a hoot about. The designs themselves don’t actually mean much aside from the fact that I think they look cool. It’s more about remembering where I was in life when I got them. That makes them special, the design by itself is immaterial. Trying to explain what my tattoos “mean” is boring because, well, it’s personal and I don’t have much more to offer than “I liked it”.

    • Hollz says:

      Yes! Came to comment the same thing, it drives me nuts! I got my tattoos because I like them, Sure, I have one for my grandmother who has passed away, but I also have a butterfly and a bunch of random stars. No meaning there, except I LIKE THE WAY THEY LOOK.

  6. Gemma13 says:

    His tattoo looks like it fits the back well and the lines look good, but her face and the skull are, to quote Oliver Peck, “wonky.” Also, her tail is squeezed together above the rose as if the original design was maybe too big? Overall I *think* it looks good. Personally, I’d want a prettier face and skull though.

    I used to never like tattoos, but I started watching Ink Master on Spike and now I’m in love with them. It’s amazing what they can do.

  7. GingerCrunch says:

    My 24 year old daughter would probably love a smaller version of that (without the wonky face, tho!).

  8. paleokifaru says:

    It looks sort of…budget. It doesn’t seem particularly intricate and I don’t personally find it beautiful or even interesting. Somehow it just comes off as cheap looking even though I’m sure it wasn’t.

  9. Nancy says:

    There is nothing cool about him. He’s like a little girl trying to get attention. Still can’t believe he was another one of those sexiest men alive. Who chooses them I wonder, certainly not women.

  10. Elisabeth says:

    just a side note…the symbol of a mermaid in medieval times always represented whores…just sayin….

  11. GinGia says:

    Human coloring book lol

  12. nina says:

    I vote for “try hard.”

  13. stinky says:

    The comments about this tattoo over on the Daily Mail article are HILARIOUS. jsyk.

  14. kimbers says:

    Everything looks good but the face and arms. Kinda stubby and not done well ;( the proportions are totally off. That seriously sucks when that happens 🙁

  15. Chloeee says:

    He just seems like he gets tattoos just to be covered. They are all wall art; nothing unique about them. I also remember him not having many tattoos when he started. As soon as the money rolled in he got blasted.

  16. dr mantis toboggan says:

    Makes sense that he’s gone and got an ed hardy t-shirt tattooed right onto his skin. It’s so hideous that mermaid’s gone cross-eyed

  17. Mela says:

    Another example of celebrities getting really ugly, horrible tattoos even though they have millions. If that took 6 months to do, it should look like a work of art. The mermaid’s face is ugly and cross-eyed. That skull is bigger than her head and looks like something doodled in a high school kid’s notebook during algebra.

    If he just wanted something to cover his back, mission accomplished.

  18. Classy and Sassy says:

    That mermaid be like ‘derp’.

  19. paranormalgirl says:

    Oh, not good work. Maybe I’m just spoiled because I have pieces by Thomas Hooper, Oliver Peck, Hannah Aitcheson, Kat Von D, and Virginia Ellwood. The face is off (I liked whoever said “resting meh face”), the skull is cartoony, some of the linework is janky, and the anatomy of the mer-angel or whatever the heck it is, is off – the arms are childlike and that makes it a little creepy. I have American traditional tattoos, done by a master of the genre, and this, frankly, sucks.

  20. Naddie says:

    The mermaid wishes she’d be in someone else’s skin.