Kelsy Karter, Who Went Viral For Harry Styles Face Tattoo, Admits It’s Fake

Last week New Zealand singer Kelsy Karter went viral after she posted a photo of herself on Instagram with a rather obvious tattoo of British artist Harry Styles on her cheek. The image appeared to be of a younger Styles and took up the majority of the side of her face, leading many people to ask the same one-word question – “Why?”

Leaving everyone to stew over this dilemma for the past week, Karter has now come forward to say that the ink is, in fact, a fake tattoo, rather than a permanent regret she would likely carry with her for the rest of her life.

As reported by the BBC, prior to getting the “ink,” Karter took to her Twitter account to hint that “I [sic] Finally know what I’m getting Harry for his birthday….” Less than two weeks later, she debuted her face, with his face apparently etched into it.

Unfortunately, her stunt didn’t even last until Styles’ birthday, which falls on February 1. On January 31, she admitted the tattoo was fake and was nothing more than a publicity stunt to promote her single about him, “Harry.” She posted a video to YouTube explaining the entire story, including how the entire scheme cost her just $300.

The song had people thinking she was just an obsessed fan, and a slightly unhinged one at that.

“Harry, I’m gonna make you love me,” she sang. “You gonna make me breakfast. It’s a secret just between us. We can keep it low-key. I ain’t being funny. You should be so lucky, to put your velvet arms around me.”

In the YouTube video, she explains that the inspiration behind the song came from the horrible time she was having in April last year after the death of her dog and her boyfriend ending their relationship.

“The last thing I wanted to do was to write another sad song about it.”

She wrote, directed, and produced the entire music video for the song back then and decided to keep it on the down-low until shortly before Styles’ birthday. Not content with the special occasion being enough to rope in the publicity and media attention to get the song off the ground, she decided to also fake a face tattoo of the singer.

Celebrity tattoo artist Romeo Lacoste worked with her on the piece to make it look real.

“By the way, we know it looked ridiculous,” the singer said in the video. “That was the point.”

The stunt certainly worked. Less than 24 hours after posting the photos of the fake ink to social media, every major news outlet had reported it, and as a bonus, had mentioned her single as well. She got some major publicity when Billboard mentioned the release of her new track as well and was even invited onto multiple talk shows to show off the ink.

It seems that all one has to do for attention is get a face tattoo of someone famous!