Over the years, tattoos have gotten more normalized. Once upon a time, these were seen as symbols of bad boys and bad girls who loved to rebel and break all the rules. These days, though, it seems like every other person you meet has a cool tattoo hidden under a sleeve or discreetly inked on their back.
However, tattoos in visible places still feel pretty transgressive…a way of completely transforming your natural appearance. And recently, one person achieved a very special honor: she is the world’s most tattooed woman. On top of that, she’s also the woman with the most body modifications.
Just who is this woman, and how did she become the most tattooed woman on the planet? Keep reading to find out!
Officially becoming the world’s most tattooed woman
The world’s most tattooed woman is Esperance Fuerzina, a 36-year-old woman who lives in Connecticut. She’s been getting tattoos since she was 21 and hasn’t stopped, and her love of ink has resulted in an astonishing feat. She now has tattoos covering almost the entirety of her body!
Now, we know what you’re thinking: just how tattooed is this lady? She currently has over 99 percent of her body covered in ink. This is enough to make her the world’s most tattooed woman. Incredibly, she isn’t slowing down, and she plans to keep on getting more ink.
Setting a special Guinness World Record
For Esperance Fuerzina, being the world’s most tattooed woman is already pretty amazing. However, she managed to set another record that is nearly as impressive. She is currently in the Guinness Book of World Records for having more body modifications than any other woman.
What kind of body modifications are we talking about? She began with one of the most controversial body mods: the tongue split, which gave her a literal forked tongue. Since then, she has gotten five facial implants and has pierced much of her body, including her gums, nipples, and labia.
The sheer number of modifications she has made setting this record relatively easy. The previous record holder was a woman named Maria José who had 49 mods on her body. As for Fuerzina, she has a whopping 89 mods, so we doubt anyone will be breaking her record anytime soon!
The surprising motivation for her tattoos
You probably know someone who has a tattoo…maybe even a few tattoos. And one thing that most of these folks have in common is that they have special motivations for getting their ink, including honoring their loved ones. Since Esperance Fuerzina has over 99 percent of her body tattooed, we couldn’t but ask the obvious question: what was her motivation for covering so much of her body up?
As reported by the Daily Mail, she has the same basic tattoo motivation that most people do…namely, she uses the ink to record some of her most precious memories. She’s an Army veteran and recounted how she likes to wander the world with little more than her old military pack. “I have had a pretty nomadic life, and not much room in my (Army) pack,” she said. Each tattoo, however, allows her to have a permanent memento that could travel with her. “I felt I could take this with me wherever I go,” she said.
Did getting all those tattoos hurt?
Once someone sees that you have a tattoo, it’s only a matter of time before they ask the inevitable question: “did that hurt?” It’s actually not a bad question to ask because the tattoo process tends to be at least a little painful. But different people have different thresholds, so ink that might really hurt one person might leave another completely unphased.
Given that info, we were curious if the world’s most tattooed woman felt much pain when she was getting ink on almost her entire body. We thought she’d be one of those folks who never has any pain, but that’s not entirely true. Esperance Fuerzina does feel the pain but also feels that it’s completely worth it. According to the Daily Mail, she said that the pain lasts for only “’a small moment in time,” which is a fair exchange “for something I can keep for life.”
Learning from a big mistake
Obviously, Esperance Fuerzina is very proud of her many tattoos…they help to record her memories and serve as extensions of her personality. However, there is at least one tattoo that she ended up seriously regretting. Weirdly enough, it’s the first one she got!
Eventually, she realized that she preferred tattoos that had a flowing look and worked well with all of her other ink. To this end, she got her very first tattoo covered up and replaced with a majestic phoenix. That’s only fitting, really, as the new tattoo is basically her old tattoo reborn.
Don’t expect her to get any more tats covered, though. In fact, the only thing you can really expect from Fuerzina is that she’ll be getting even more tattoos before you know it!