[OSEN=Reporter Ha Soo-jung] Singer Lee Jung revealed the reason he started getting tattoos.
Recently, singer Lee Jung appeared on the YouTube channel ‘Tattoo Removal by Teacher Youngsoo’ and confessed his reasons for starting to get tattoos and why he wants to completely remove them.
Lee Jung said, “I got to know the teacher through YouTube first, and I personally sent my story. Rather than messed-up tattoos, I have many tattoos with stories on my body.”
He continued, “These days, I live as if I have been reborn with a new name, Cheonrokdam, for my trot singer alter ego. I started getting tattoos when I was having many bad thoughts. I want to shake off these tattoos and the bad thoughts they represent. That’s why I came here,” he explained.
“It was around 2004 when a member I was working with passed away and went to heaven. That’s when I got a meaningful lettering tattoo on my hidden lower back. After that, I heard there was a tattoo champion in Australia where I went to perform, so I just went to observe and ended up getting a high note symbol tattooed under my left ear,” he shared.
The member Lee Jung mentioned is the late Seo Jae-ho. On August 11, 2004, after finishing a performance in Busan, he passed away in an accident while traveling back to Seoul via highway late at night, at the age of 22.
The late Seo Jae-ho debuted in 2002 with the vocal group 7Dayz, which disbanded, and then re-debuted with the group Wanted in 2004. He had previously worked with Lee Jung in 7Dayz.
Additionally, Lee Jung said, “It’s already been about 10 years now. I was feeling skeptical about my entertainment career and was physically and mentally exhausted. I went down to Jeju Island with plans to completely leave my activities, and that’s when I started getting more tattoos one by one. Looking back, it was a foolish thought, thinking ‘If there are visible tattoos, I can’t be on broadcast.’ So I started getting more tattoos with the intention of leaving broadcasting,” he confessed.