Ariana Grande's "Japanese BBQ" Tattoo

Submission 11,066

Part of a series on Ariana Grande. [View Related Entries]

About

Ariana Grande's "Japanese BBQ" Tattoo refers to a series of jokes and memes regarding a mistranslated tattoo on singer Ariana Grande's hand. Grande, who received the tattoo to commemorate the release of her song "7 Rings," wanted the tattoo to read "7 Rings" in Japanese letters. However, the tattoo translated to "shichirin," which is a type of small charcoal grill used in Japan.

Origin

On January 29, 2019, Grande posted an image on Instagram. of her hand with two Japanese kanji characters near the top of the palm toward the knuckles. She wrote, "This felt super good @kanenavasard jk (everyone thinks this is a fake hand but it’s indeed…. my hand." The post has since been deleted but had received more than 430,000 likes before that time (shown below, left).^[1] Additionally, the image was uploaded to her official Japanese Twitter ^[2] account. Within 24 hours, the tweet received more than 5,800 retweets and 10,000 likes (shown below, right).

Spread

That day, Twitter^[1] user @hey__amo tweeted that the tattoo did not mean "7 Rings" but rather "shichirin." They wrote, "Ariana Grande’s new tattoo “七輪” means Japanese style bbq grill, not 7 rings. 😭 If you want to know about 七輪, just google “SHICHIRIN.” The tweet received more than 24,000 retweets and 75,000 likes in 24 hours (shown below).

Following the post, people mocked Grande about the misspelling. Twitter^[3] user @jinsO_Oul tweeted a video of a woman crying with the caption, "ariana grande after the translator lies to her and tattoos japanese barbecue on her finger." The tweet received more than 175 retweets and 840 likes in 24 hours (shown below, left).

Twitter user @arb tweeted^[4] a reaction image of Marie Kondo with the caption, "i love fyre festival. i love ariana grande's hand tattoo." The tweet received more than 15 retweets and 140 likes in 24 horus (shown below, center).

That evening, Grande deleted the post from Instagram and tweeted at @hey_amo (shown below, right). She wrote, "Indeed, I left out 'つの指' which should have gone in between. It hurt like f**k n still looks tight. I wouldn't have lasted one more symbol lmao. But this spot also peels a ton and won't last so if I miss it enough I'll suffer thru the whole thing next time."

The following day, Grande posted an updated version of the tattoo, adding two new characters, on Instagram Stories (shown below, left).^[5] She wrote on the image, "Slightly better. Thanks to my tutor for helping me fix and to @kanenavasard for being a legend. And to my doctor for the lidocaine shots (no joke). RIP tiny charcoal grill. Miss u man. I actually really liked u."

However, according to Kotaku,^[7] the translation is still incorrect. They wrote, "Hoping to correct the 'small charcoal grill' (七輪) kanji, Grande added the kanji 指, meaning 'finger.' This addition attempts to turn the kanji 輪, meaning wheel or hoop, into the word 指輪 (yubiwa), meaning
'ring' as in for a finger, and mitigating the BBQ kanji. However, the kanji 指 and 輪 are split into different lines, so it looks weird. In English, this would be like writing 'ings' as 'ri' and then 'ngs' in another paragraph."

That day, Twitter^[6] user @plasticbeacch tweeted, "ARIANA GRANDE CHANGED HER TATTOO FROM BEING 'bbq grill' TO 'Japanese Bbq Finger ♡' HOW DID SHE MESS UP THIS BAD." Within 24 hours, the tweet received more than 100 retweets and 200 likes (shown below, right).

Several media outlets covered that tattoo, including The Guardian,^[5] Kotaku,^[7] BuzzFeed, ^[8] The Washington Post^[9] and more.