Justin Bieber’s Personal Decoder for His Many, Many Tattoos

 

Justin Bieber Explains the Meaning Behind A Lot of his tattoos!

While on set for his  recent GQ photo shoot, the publication had the opportunity to probe Justin Bieber about his tattoos. The musician has quite the selection of ink at the ripe age of 21, and stories to go along with each of them. From numerous tats for his mother, an owl for wisdom, a portrait of Jesus, and even some ink for one of his exes, press play on the clip above to hear the Biebs dish on the meaning behind a few of his standout pieces.

 

Explaining his ink, from math-geek symbols to faded ex-girlfriends

Justin Bieber, a highly decorated musician, has us spilling a lot of ink in the pages of GQ. He’s revealing many of his secrets, even his most obvious ones—like the big tattoos that are right there on his body. In spirit of full disclosure, he has provided us with a full key to his myriad of tats. In his own assessment of this body-work: “It seems like I have a lot of stuff.”

 

In terms of the visual information on Bieber’s bod, the avian theme is the most prevalent. His first tattoo was a tiny crotch-adjacent bird. He says it is from a children’s book he read with his family. It is a book about “a seagull who wanted to be more than just a seagull.” On his arm, he says, is “an owl, it signifies wisdom.” 

Bieber’s most recent tattoo is two wings at the base of his neck. They are position in such a way that if his head were to flee its body, it could transported by these wings. Bieber referred to this process of acquiring these inky appendages as “mad uncomfortable.”

 

From here, letter-based symbols are the most prominent. He has emblazed his chest with an outdated, and therefore serious, numerical system. They’re called Roman numerals. They stand for his mother’s birthday. As for the “LL” on his inner upper arm, he says, “This one is really cool. It stands from when my head’s low to lift it up. Just to never keep your head low and just to always look for the better days.” On his arm, there is an “X.” But it’s not just any X; he says, it’s for the “unknown.”

 

Speaking of exes, “This is my ex-girlfriend, I kinda tried to cover her face up with some shading, but people still know.” And now we all know what all his tattoos mean. It’s his final word—as final as the decision to get a tattoo.