A man who has been dubbed the ‘world’s most terrifying teacher’ because of his huge number of tattoos has revealed that he’s spent £52,000 inking his body, and has been removed from teaching because of it.
Sylvain Helaine has worked as a teacher in his native France and in London over a period spanning more than a decade, but claims he was told he wouldn’t be allowed to teach kindergarten age children any more after one had a nightmare about him.
As you can see, Helaine - who also works as a model - is covered head to toe in ink and has even had his eyeballs blackened.
It’s an extreme look, but not one that should necessarily preclude him from having a job, right?
It’s cost him a fair bit of cash, too.
Helaine explained how he went to Switzerland to have his eyeballs injected with ink in order to turn them completely black.
It sounds like a pretty horrific procedure, to be quite honest.
When he appeared on This Morning in 2020, he said: "You've got one guy holding you down and the other coming with a syringe and putting it straight into your eyes.
"It's like torture. I won't recommend it to anyone because it's painful - you can't see a thing for a couple of days after.
"You pretty much feel you will lose your sight - and actually a lot of people have lost their sight. So don't do it."
Still, the primary school teacher, who boasts 91,000 followers on Instagram where he’s known as ‘Freaky Hoody’, wants to help kids in his professional life, although he was told he couldn’t do that by French school officials a few years ago.
He told BFMTV: "The Inspection Académique no longer wanted me to go work in kindergarten to avoid receiving letters of complaint.
"They [Inspection Académique] didn't want to rock the boat, and wanted to avoid parents from complaining about my appearance."
According to Sylvain, the complaint was made by the parent of a three-year-old who wasn’t even taught by him.
He continued: "My appearance is not an obstacle on a daily basis, because I think I am a good teacher and do my best at my job and progress from year to year.
"It is a problem for some people, but rarely, it is one parent in 1,000, and they are parents of children that I do not have in class.
"With the parents of the children I have in class, everything is going well.
“With the children too, once the surprise is over, we work well and they think I'm the coolest."
At the time, a spokesperson for the local authorities said an agreement had been reached with Sylvain for him to teach an older class because – they claimed – pupils under six ‘could be frightened by his appearance’.
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