Shawn Mendes got tattoos the way most people fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once. Three years ago, the "Can't Have You" singer had only one. Now, he has six — actually make that seven. Mendes just added another tattoo to his fast-growing collection, and the design came straight from Twitter.
On Sunday night, Mendes posted a Boomerang video to his Instagram Storyshowing that he was in the middle of getting inked by tattoo artist Livia Tsang. The tattoo? Butterfly wings, half of which burst into a bouquet of flowers. Cool, right? Well, the backstory behind where and how Mendes found the design is quite unique.
Last week, a Mendes super fan, Kayla (@nasaruins), posted two edited photos of the singer on Twitter with a — fake! — butterfly tattoo on his left arm. "Shawn Mendes with a butterfly tattoo," she tweeted. "I rest my case." One day later, Mendes retweeted the photos, writing "Wait this is awesome, can u DM the drawing ??"
After a brief direct message exchange with Kayla, Mendes got ahold of the butterfly design, which was originally created by Chile-based tattoo artist, who goes by @macdreaper on Instagram. Turns out, Mendes loved the idea of the tattoo so much he made it permanent. On Sunday night, Tsang posted a photo of Mendes with the finished tattoo.