Britain’s most tattooed man has appeared on a TV show to discuss his £40,000 tattoo journey that saw him get his eyeballs tattooed.
Formerly known as Matthew Whelan, the British man’s legal name is now ‘King of Ink Land King Body Art The Extreme Ink-ite’, and he appeared on the TV show to reveal why he had spent 1,600 hours covering his entire body in ink.
Whelan, who is known to his friends as ‘Body Art’ as opposed to his full name, appeared on This Morning where he revealed that he was just 16 when he got his first tattoo.
Body Art has spoken about how he knew from the age of nine that he wanted to get a tattoo, and shared that his first tattoo was of a British bulldog, stating that it was after his first dog.
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Mr Art’s entire body is covered in tattoos, including his eyeballs, and he holds the world record for the most tattoo artists working on the same person at one time - 36, if you're wondering.
He was asked about getting his eyeballs tattooed on the show, stating that it ‘wasn’t painful’.
He said: “My eyes, people are fascinated with the eyes, they’re drawn in because of the ink in my eyeballs.”
The hosts spoke about about the ‘dangerous’ process to get his eyes tattooed, with ‘King of Ink Land’ adding: “It’s a very dangerous process, a girl I know in Canada that had eyesight issues but I had an eye test beforehand.”
Body Art stated that it is done with a ‘syringe’, explaining they ‘pierce the muscle tissue of the eyeball’, stating that ‘your optical nerve is not in the eyeball so it’s not painful just dangerous’.
The process did not require him to be knocked out, but this did mean he had to ‘be a statue’ and not move, saying it’s the difference between losing your eyesight or not.
The pictures from before his tattoos show a stark difference, most notably in his untattooed eyes which he said in part he had done because orangutans were his favourite animal and they had black eyes.
People watching the clips were shocked by his appearance, with some going as far as to call it an ‘addiction’.
One comment on a YouTube clip of the new interview said: “I've got tattoos but this insane.”
Another said: “This isn’t something to be celebrated.”
On Instagram, one viewer commented saying: “It's the eyes I think is crazy thing to do."
Another said: "It’s a personal choice that people without tattoos will never understand. People will judge no matter what."
A third added: "I watched this on tv this morning, once again could not believe what I saw! Yes there is a button and once again I switched it off."
Topics: This Morning, TV
Michael Slavin