Ariana Grande's kanji tattoo fail: new ink reads 'Japanese BBQ grill' instead of '7 Rings'

soranews24.com -- Jan 31

Earlier this month, Ariana Grande’s love of tattoos made news when it was revealed she’d gotten Pokemon’s Eevee inked onto her bicep. Today, fans around the world are talking about the relationship between Grande’s tattoos and Asian characters again, but this time it’s in a whole different context.

The characters we’re talking about today are two kanji ones that the American singer-songwriter recently got inked into her upper palm. The new markings are a meaningful homage to her new single “7 Rings”, which is currently at the top of music charts in a number of different countries.

The title of the new single is correctly translated into Japanese as “七つの指輪” (“nanatsu no yubiwa“) in the official music video.

The appearance of Japanese in the clip is Grande’s hat-tip to Japan, a country that’s been close to her heart since she sang with Japanese YouTuber Hikakin back in 2014. With so much meaning behind the title of her new single, it’s easy to see why the singer was inspired to ink her body with the words “7 Rings” in Japanese. However, this is what she wound up with.

Instead of writing out the whole thing, she chose to use only the first kanji (七), which translates to “seven”, and the last one (輪) which is read as “wheel”, “hoop,” “ring”, or “circle”. However, when the two kanji are combined, they don’t read “7 Rings”. They read “shichirin”, which is a small charcoal grill.