Update: The Daily Mail published this story well after we did. They completely jacked our idea, which probably isn’t even accurate, used the exact same map we found, and never even mentioned our site. Guess it’s a win for them since they didn’t have to point out someone’s cellulite or saggy knees that day.

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Brad Pitt has a line drawn tattoo on his back that could depict the streets in the French Quarter of New Orleans. New Orleans levee system which failed during Hurricane Katrina. This is likely to occur to others when they see the tattoo, but it took some deductive reasoning for me to figure it out. At first I thought it might be a pared-down architectural drawing, because Pitt is known to love modern architecture. I looked up sketches by Pitt’s favorite architects and nothing really matched.

Then I tried to think what’s Pitt might consider incredibly important and remembered his “Make it Right” project building green homes for New Orleans residents displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

I found an illustration of the New Orleans levees streets on Wikipedia, and when you turn it on the side and control for how far out the levees streets were, the tattoo on Pitt’s back matches exactly.

Pitt has a tattoo of Europe’s oldest natural human mummy, Ötzi, on his left forearm. He also has Angelina Jolie’s birthday in Khmer on his lower stomach.

Brad Pitt was seen taking his boys Pax and Maddox on a helicopter with an older gentleman in the South of France yesterday. Their pregnant mom Angelina and sisters Zahara and Shiloh stayed home. At one point his shirt blew up to show the tattoo on his back which has not yet been seen by the public.

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are also show in faraway photos on the deck of the villa where they’re staying in the South of France.

Update: Pitt also has a sanskrit blessing on his lower left back, which is similar to a tattoo that Angelina has. It is thought to be a protection prayer for his son Maddox. [Thanks Meredith!]

Update 2: Thanks to commenter Ceenitall for pointing out that those are the streets of New Orleans in that illustration, not the levees. If you count the number of the streets, their positions and the way the streets curve, they are remarkably similar to his tattoo. It could be a coincidence though and the verdict is still out as to what exactly it is. I looked up higher res satellite photos of the flooding in New Orleans as well as charts of where the levees broke, and it doesn’t seem to explain Pitt’s tattoo.

Update 3: Here’s a tattoo that Angelina used to have on her right arm that’s similar to Brad’s. It’s an abstract line design she did with Billy Bob Thornton and is now covered up with the Arabic phrase “strength of will.” [Thanks to anonymous commentor and freetattoodesigns.org. Now I will quit trying to figure this out.]

Thanks to Splash News for these photos.

See People Magazine’s latest edition for the tattoo photos
When you hear that Nick and Mariah got each other’s names tattooed on their body as a symbol of their undying six weeks of love, you assume that they’re small to medium tattoos of the type that are regrettable but easily lasered off or covered over after an inevitable break up. Johnny Depp had his “Winona Forever shoulder tattoo altered to read “Wino Forever” and Angelina Jolie had her “Billy Bob” tattoo removed and replaced with the coordinates of her children’s birthplaces.

The disparity between Nick Cannon’s tattoo for Mariah Carey and Mariah’s “Mrs. Cannon” tattoo is huge, though. Hers is easily covered up and is hard to see. She has a small butterfly at the base of her spine with “Mrs. Cannon” in script as the center line of the butterfly. It’s nearly impossible to see and you can’t tell that the center of the butterfly is actual writing unless you’re right up close.

Nick Cannon has “Mariah” tattooed across his entire upper back in giant half-cursive writing with a mirror image of the tattoo beneath it like a reflection. That is going to be super painful to remove. What’s more is that these two got the tattoos right after they met each other, because Mariah told People it had been a “few weeks” since they had the tattoos done and they’ve only been together for six weeks. Scary Spice and Eddie Murphy also got tattoos for each other almost immediately, and look how that worked out for them:

On how they connected immediately while collaborating on “Bye Bye” video

Nick: From the first time we sat down to discuss the video… we connected. We had so much in common spiritually, and we laugh at the same things. I didn’t have to put on my Mac Daddy suave mode. I was able to be myself with her. We are both eternally 12 years old.

Mariah [laughing] We were having a [sic] such a good time on the shoot.

Nick: I brought her little pieces of candy. I’d write little third-grade notes instead of being over-the-top.

Mariah: He wrote a note, “Will you be my girlfriend?” with boxes for yes or no. In the video, we’re boyfriend and girlfriend. It seemed very natural.

[From People Magazine, print edition, May 19, 2008]

On if their friends were surprised by the marriage, and about their tattoos

Mariah: Some were, but some weren’t. One thing [few people] knew was we got tattoos a few weeks earlier. So anyone who saw my [Mrs. Cannon] tattoo wasn’t surprised.

Nick: To me rings are special and exciting, but tattoos mean more than anything. They’re forever and ever. They professed our love.

Mariah: And they hurt!

Nick: A lot.

[From People Magazine, print edition, May 19, 2008]

How Nick Proposed with a Ring Pop, filmed it, then did another take for the cameras

On April 25 Cannon took Carey to the roof of her NYC apartment to see the Empire State Building, lit pink and lavender to honor her album E=MC². As he often did, he gave her a Ring Pop - candy shaped like a big jewel. But inside the wrapper was a 17-carat pink-diamond ring… Her reaction? “He had ribbons around it, so I said ‘I think mine’s broke,” says Care. When he drpoped to one knee, “she ran away and got all shy,” he says. Finally, she said yes - twice. Cannon, who filmed it all, proposed again to get a perfect take, this time on a helicopter. “That,” says Carey, “was beautiful.”

[From People Magazine, print edition, May 19, 2008]

So Nick says they both act 12, that he sent her candy with little notes on it, and that he even proposed with candy. And he taped the proposal twice so I assume it will be on television at some point after someone pays a hefty sum for it. They marked their names on each other like a junior high student writes on a notebook cover, and then topped it off by having an impulsive wedding. Mariah wasn’t stupid though and she seems to have hedged her bets. Reports say she did get a prenuptial agreement. Now that I know her tattoo for Nick is tiny and hard to decipher she seems to have thought this through much more than I previously gave her credit for.

Here’s a clip from Oprah with some of the photos that are now in People. It’s pretty funny.

Thanks to Huffington Post for the video. You can see more wedding photos in the latest edition of People Magazine.

There are few things that I consider to be less sexy than Victoria Beckham. She looks like a fencepost that someone’s tied two unsightly balloons onto in an effort to alert people to a birthday party inside the house. Looking at her makes me want cake and pin the tail on the donkey. She does not make me want to rip my clothes off and do dirty things. But for whatever disgusting reason, David Beckham apparently disagrees with me. He’s just gotten a “seductive” tattoo of a naked Victoria on his left arm. I hope he plans to have sex with his shirt on.

Football star David Beckham has a new tattoo, and this one is unlike all the others - it’s a naked picture of his wife Victoria. The soccer star’s seven-inch artwork on his left arm features the Spice Girl lying on her back surrounded by stars and baring her breasts with her knees raised up seductively. The etching was based on David’s favourite photograph of Victoria from a Bridget Bardot-inspired shoot she did for Pop magazine four years ago.

A source said: “David is thrilled with the results. He thinks of Victoria as his angel, which is why he decided on the stars. Victoria is very flattered with this beautiful tribute.” David, 32, showed off his latest tattoo - which is designed around a previous inking of Victoria’s name in Hindi - when he stripped off to kick a ball around on a Brazilian beach to launch his latest soccer academy earlier this week.

[From Stuff]

In other - and I’m sure unrelated - news, David Beckham has announced that he will be abstaining from sex until his vision completely fades away. Which will happen much quicker now that he has a naked Posh inked onto his arm. Despite my strenuous objections, David clearly knows what he’s doing - this is his 11th tattoo. He’s also got the names of all three of his kids on various locales. I can’t help but wonder how he’s going to explain the naked image of their mother to them. The most important part of learning about the birds and the bees when growing up is the ability to reassure yourself that your parents don’t know about it, and certainly have never done it. That’s going to be a lot more challenging - and oddly confusing - when the boys see their mom’s boobs on their dad’s arm.

25-year-old actor Brad Renfro’s funeral and memorial service were held yesterday in his hometown of Knoxville, Tennessee. Renfro was found dead last Tuesday morning by friends. He’d had a long history of drug and alcohol problems, and had been arrested several times, once in a highly publicized sting by the L.A.P.D. Though he’d been on probation, he was found to be in violation of it this past summer for failing to enroll in a long-term drug treatment program. Renfro first found fame when he was 12 after starring in “The Client” with Susan Sarandon. Unfortunately he went the way of many former child actors, and struggled with his addictions.

Renfro’s great-uncle Michael Earl officiated at the service.

An arrangement of red, white and yellow flowers adorned the closed casket, along with a photograph of a young, smiling Renfro, the Knoxville News Sentinel reports. Approximately 600 well-wishers, including Renfro’s father and stepmother, Mark and Kim Renfro, and his mother, Angel Olsen, paid their respects. The actor’s maternal grandmother, Judy Hurt, half-sister Haley Olsen and stepbrother Dane Hoffmeister, also attended. His paternal grandmother, Joanne Renfro, who raised Renfro from the age of 5, was too ill to make it.

During his sermon, he [great-uncle Michael Earl] hinted at the actor’s past problems with drug addiction, according to the News Sentinel.

“Brad had problems just like I have problems, just like you have problems, just like all of us have trials and tribulations that we go through,” Earl said. “Was Brad perfect? Well, I can tell you, I’m not. Are you? He lived life, and he enjoyed it,” Earl later said of the actor. “Whatever he did, he did it hard as he could. … If he messed up, he’d go after it 100 percent. Yeah, I know him. And yes, I loved him.”

[From Us Weekly]

Though I could find several articles say that Renfro was raised by his grandmother, none of them state why. It’s an unusual circumstance, considering both of his parents are alive and supposedly well. It sounds like Brad’s uncle did a good job eulogizing him. He was honest and still kind. Though you want to only say nice things after someone dies, everyone knew about Brad’s struggles, so there was no point in any BS.

Sir Ian McKellen, who worked with Renfro on “Apt Pupil” wrote a nice tribute to Brad on his website. It says in part,

I first caught sight of Brad Renfro when he was kicking a football around with Bryan Singer on the half-built set of Apt Pupil in Hollywood. He was a kid having fun and that’s how I shall always remember him. But he was more than that. He was a proper actor and when we worked together he was determined to be accepted as such.

In Hollywood he was a teenage charmer, chaperoned by his beloved grandmother and by his admirers who protected him as best they could from the dangers of being a child in a careless adult’s world. On set, he was blusteringly confident although it was obvious he would have benefitted from training as an actor. Yet, as Todd, the disturbed teenager in Apt Pupil, he tapped into an inner demonic world and carried the film on his young shoulders.

[From mckellen.com]

There’s a little bit of internet gossip claiming that the coroner’s report is going to say that Brad died as a result of complications from the giant “F*** y’all” tattoo he got on his back 24 – 48 hours before his death. Though that seems highly unlikely, freak things do happen, and there an incredibly tiny possibility of infection and sepsis. I would think that a back tattoo would be hard to reach and thus tend to with ointments like you’re supposed to afterwards. If nothing else, Brad Renfro’s life is truly a cautionary tale about the dangers of fame and addiction. It seems so rare that you hear a story about a child actor whose life isn’t in some way negatively affected by their early success. It’s hard to know if it’s the fame itself, or the lack of a traditional childhood. Some have claimed it’s due in part to the unusual role reversal where they become the breadwinner for the rest of their family. Hopefully Brad has some sort of peace now.

Charlie Sheen, Charlie Sheen, what do I think of you? I’m sure you’re hunkered down in your bed right now fretting over that very question, huh? Well I used to think you were a horny pervy mess who used Heidi Fleiss’s hookers way too much. Though that implies that there’s an acceptable amount of hookerage that’s okay, and that’s not really the case. But you took it to some legendary extremes. Then I felt kinda badly for you, because Denise Richards was sorta crazy and losing her mind while trying to use your kids to punish you. But then I heard some crazy messages you left for her, and it sounds like you have bigger issues than previously mentioned… and you were already looking quasi-insane. But now, here you are, getting your tattoos lasered off for your fiancée, and that’s pretty nice of you. So I’m left in a moral quandary, and I can’t really tell you where I stand. But I’ll keep you updated.

“What’s the difference between love and tattoos? Tattoos last forever. But Charlie Sheen hopes to change all that by promising to remove his 13 tattoos for fiancée Brooke Mueller, 30, who is apparently not a fan of her man’s ink. According to the New York Post’s Page Six, the once hard-partying actor doesn’t remember getting some of the tats, like the stingray on his left ankle or the dragon wearing glasses. A tat of a wooden sign nailed to his chest above his heart reads, ‘Back in 15 minutes.’

“‘That one was meant to be an ashtray but went horribly wrong,’ Sheen, 42, has said. ‘I can’t even remember the year I got it.’ The Two and a Half Men star is no stranger to tattoo removal. With the help of a laser, he’s already blasted off the ‘Denise’ tattoo he had inked on his left wrist in honor of ex-wife Denise Richards.”

[From Us Weekly]

I wish I wasn’t a crazily superstitious person, but I am. I don’t walk under ladders, open umbrellas inside, or throw fortunes from cookies away. That last one is a superstition I invented myself, but I totally think it’s true. And I’m pretty sure that there’s no quicker way to doom a relationship than to get someone’s name tattooed on your body. It’s just asking for failure. I once tried to convince a (now) ex-boyfriend to get Thumper the rabbit tattooed somewhere for me, and I’m pretty sure the reason our relationship lasted as long as it did is that he didn’t listen. Though I still think it’d be freaking cute, Charlie Sheen should totally get a Thumper tattoo. It’s this joyous mix of tough guy (hello, tattoo!) and sweet, cuddly guy (hello, foot pounding rabbit!). Just a thought. Put Brooke’s name on it somewhere and I’m sure she won’t mind a little bit. And it won’t doom their relationship at all. Because I think his prior history already takes care of that.

Picture Note by Jaybird: Here’s Charlie Sheen at the CBS Summer Press Tour in July. He had “Denise” tattooed on his left wrist, so either his watch is just perfectly placed, or he’s been working on the tattoo removal for a while. Images thanks to Splash Photos.

Who says someone who was once crazy is always crazy? Evan Rachel Wood, aka Marilyn Manson’s girlfriend/[I had a bunch of really specific, filthy names to stick here, but I thought better of it] has decided to get her weird, completely indecipherable tattoo repaired. Why would she do this, you ask? Doesn’t Marilyn Manson encourage unnecessarily weird things? Why yes he does, but apparently even he can’t stop Evan Rachel Wood from fixing a bunch of leaves that appear to look like a ferret. I bet Manson totally gets off on that.

“Evan Rachel Wood says she enjoyed filming ‘Across the Universe’ so much, she had a tattoo inked in tribute to the Beatles-themed musical romance. Now the 20-year-old actress plans to get the tattoo covered up ‘because nobody can figure out what it is,’ she tells People magazine in its Oct. 8 issue.

“‘It’s supposed to be a strawberry with leaves in the shape of a bird, but everybody says, `Is that a ferret sticking out of an apple?’”

[From the Associated Press]

Yeah, ferrets and apples are just totally stupid, bizarre, and flat out un-sexy. Now Marilyn Manson’s skeleton of a little Chinese boy is totally normal though. I find it unusual that she’s drawn the line where she has, but whatever. And what about Wood’s other tattoos, you ask?

“Wood says she has three tattoos. Her favorite is the one she received on Valentine’s Day from her boyfriend, 38-year-old goth rocker Marilyn Manson.

“‘It’s a lightning bolt - for David Bowie, who inspired me to act and sing - and a black heart,’ she says. ‘That was my present (from Manson). Somebody came to the house. We both got black hearts. It represents mad love.’

“Wood says her parents aren’t OK with the tattoos.

“‘It took me a while to tell my mom about this last one,’ she says. ‘But she’s cool with it now. I even told her I was getting the Beatles one covered up. She’s like, `Great, just call me when you’re done.’”

[From the Associated Press]

That last part really leaves you wondering… how exactly does one introduce a nearly-twice-your-age Marilyn Manson to your parents? “Mom, this is Marilyn, Marilyn, this is my mom Marilyn.” That’d make me happy if Evan Rachel Wood’s mom’s name really was Marilyn. I don’t want to sound like a fussy old grandma… but I’m close enough already, so I’ll just say that Marilyn Manson is so gross. If my daughter brought him home, I would have a bounty on his fake white pasty face before he even took off his coat. Alright grandma’s done. For now.

Picture note by Celebitchy: Evan Rachel Wood is shown on 9/10/07 at the Toronto Film Festival, thanks to PRPhotos. Picture of Wood’s tattoo is from EvanRachelWood.info.

This sounds like fake news, but it’s a cute story so I’ll repeat it. An old woman at The Golden Globes spotted Angelina Jolie’s tattoo on her left shoulder and tried to wipe it off, thinking it was newspaper ink:

At the Golden Globes, Angelina Jolie cracked up when an elderly lady spotted the Cambodian tattoo she sports on her shoulder and offered to help her wipe off the “newspaper ink.” The well-meaning woman whispered: “That newspaper ink gets all over the place - especially if you’re wearing moisturizer. You must have leaned up against it. See? The letters are all backwards.” Jolie explained that it wasn’t ink, but a permanent tatoo - a magical incantation writter in Khmer, the language of the land where adopted son Maddox was born. “My mistake,” said the woman. “I’d love to get one just like it.”

[From The National Enquirer print edition, Mike Walker’s column, February 5, 2007]

They must be referring to Angelina’s tatoo on her back left shoulder blade, not the one on her left shoulder. The one on her back is a magical Khmer incantation which is said to read:

May your enemies run far away from you.
If you acquire riches, may they remain yours always.
Your beauty will be that of Apsara. (a celestial dancer from Khmer mythology)
Wherever you may go, many will attend, serve and protect you, surrounding you on all sides.

The tattoo on Angelina’s left shoulder is a recent one and contains the coordinates of Zahara and Maddox’s birthplaces. It’s in the place where a tattoo with the name of her ex, “Billy Bob” used to be, and appears above a black dragon, which looks like its in the process of being lasered off.

The woman has a shitload of tattoos. I mean I have a couple from college that I’m not too ashamed of, but it was a phase I went through and wear on my body forever. I had a friend who was addicted to tattoos, though, and had them all over her legs, back and shoulders. The process was just too painful for me to go through it more than twice.

This story is cute, but it doesn’t seem likely to be true. If the old woman spotted Angelina’s back shoulder blade tattoo she must not have seen the other one on her shoulder if she mistook it for newspaper ink.

Trashtastic Anna Nicole Smith and her weird boyfriend/lawyer Howard K. Stern took in the Samuel Peter vs. James Toney boxing match Saturday night in Florida. Smith and Stern are stateside by court order, and must submit Anna’s baby to paternity testing by January 23rd. Stern claims to be the father of the baby but the general consensus is that paparrazo Larry Birkhead is the biological father. Birkhead is suing Smith for custody.

MSNBC’s The Scoop reports that Anna is trying to set up an offshore company in order to hide potential assets from Birkhead. Anna is still fighting for a piece of the $1.6 billion estate of J. Howard Marshall, the 89 year-old guy she married and jerked off for a year before he died in 1995. His son, who was trying to bar Anna from cashing in on the will, passed away last summer, but word is that Anna doesn’t have much of a chance of getting the money now.

Anna Nicole showed off a new huge back tattoo that features her and her baby Dannielynn in a cute pose together. I first thought it was Anna’s departed son Daniel on the tattoo, but now it looks more like Anna to me. Whoever did the tattoo was probably as medicated as Anna usually is, and they certainly weren’t a talented artist. It would make more sense if it was supposed to be Daniel, but doesn’t it look like Anna?

These pictures show what a parasite Howard K. Stern is. He looks like he’s smelling Anna’s hair here and in every photo he’s grabbing onto to her. What a freak he is.

Pamela Anderson was at the tattoo artist about to get inked with her new husband Kid Rock’s name when she had a reminder of how fleeting relationships can be. The tattoist told her that he’d recently done some work on her ex husband, Tommy Lee. That is said to have reminded her of the ring tattoo of Tommy’s name she had around her wedding finger, which she changed to “Mommy!” once they broke up. Pamela hightailed it out of there, and it’s a good thing because her relationship with Rock lasted only a few weeks longer:

Here’s a PAMELA ANDERSON story I heard last week, but now I’m glad I didn’t tell you - because her decision to divorce KID ROCK makes it a truly poignant tale! Pam popped into Vancouver’s West Coast Tattoo to ink her new hubby’s name on her bod… but suddenly paused when the tattoo artist bragged he’d just illustrated the skins of the “Rock Star: Supernova” cast - including ex-hubby TOMMY LEE. In a sudden memory of how fleeting love can be, Pam eyed her ring finger - where Tommy’s name had been tattooed in happier days - then nixed a Kid Rock tat, saying: “Maybe I’d better wait and see how things work out!” (WHEW!…Close call, girlfriend.)

It seems like the only names you should ever get tattooed with are the names of your parents or kids, or maybe a friend who has died who you can no longer argue with.

There may be another reason Pam decided against getting a tattoo at that point. She claimed that she contracted Hepatitis C from Tommy Lee after sharing a tattoo needle with him. So any tattoos she got while she was married to him must remind her of their failed relationship and the chronic illness he left her with. That didn’t stop her from running back to him for a public makeout session after she filed for divorce, though.

Anderson has said that she’s coping with her divorce from Kid Rock by doing lots of baking and home decorating. From what I remember of an MTV show I saw of her house, she likes that feminine shabby chic french country style. Maybe she should call up Tori Spelling to come help her out.

Update: Popoholic has a top five list of celebrity tattooed babes. Pamela Anderson comes in at five, and Angelina Jolie predictably tops the list. Her “Know your rights” upper back tatoo was visible at the NY premiere of The Good Shephard this week.