Last season on “America’s Worst Tattoos,” New York City-based tattoo artist Megan Massacre was brought in to help a woman who had a large tattoo on each of her breasts, one of a cowboy boot filled with French fries and the other of a hot dog wearing a Native American headdress and playing a guitar.
Faced with the woman’s impending wedding day, Massacre was able to cover up the fast-food designs with a more tasteful chest piece of autumn leaves blowing in the wind.
Transforming such ridiculous or botched tattoos is the basis of this TLC series, which returns for its second season Thursday at 10:30 p.m. Each half-hour episode showcases people who regrettably got tattoos that did not turn out how they wanted, and Massacre — who inks at the Soho studio Wooster Street Social Club — promises the cover-ups are way more intense this season.
“We show them that there is hope — you might have a tattoo and artists might tell you that tattoo is hard to cover up, but there is likely a chance out there that we can help you if you go to the right artist,” she tells The Post.
In Thursday’s season premiere, the bad tattoos include a girl who asked for a ferocious bear and ended up with a laughably cartoonish one, a guy who let his 7-year-old son tattoo him and another regretting the enormous “Florida” lettering on his back representing his home state.
Most of the terrible tattoos Massacre sees are the result of a bad decision someone made when they were younger — like a tattoo symbolizing a romantic relationship that ended or a tat inked on while drunk.
Others are botched designs on the part of the artist. While people featured on the show sketch out potential tattoos and consult with the client before inking, Massacre says that isn’t always the case. “People just sometimes don’t really
know the process,” she says. “Maybe they’re getting their first tattoo and no one’s ever told them what to do so they just come in and trust whoever artist they’re talking to.
“The fact is your have to do your research,” she says. “You have to go into the shop, meet people, talk to the artist and look at their portfolio. Have them provide pictures of their work they’ve already done so you know they’ve done a good job.”
Massacre, who has been working as a tattoo artist for 10 years, says she does almost as many cover-ups as new tattoos (she will even get one herself this season), though they are often more difficult based on how dark and old the tattoo is
— and how badly it was done.
“Cover-ups are definitely a challenge because you’re not working with clean skin, you’re dealing with something that’s already there, you have to try to hide it,” she says.
And for the clients, often it’s about hiding more than just an eyesore. “America’s Worst Tattoos” also delves into the back stories of the bad tattoos, and the parlor chair turns into a therapist’s ouch.
“It’s not just about covering up a bad piece of artwork, it’s covering up a bad memory for a lot of people,” Massacre says.
“We talk to them about it and they use this experience to move past that moment.”