Adam Levine’s Giant Back Tattoo Still Has The Internet Swimming For Answers

Adam Levine’s shirtless Super Bowl stunt still has the internet ringing over the Maroon 5 singer’s ink. For the musician’s recent 40th birthday, his wife, Behati Prinsloo, shared a shirtless photo of him— which, fittingly, is how we best recognize him.

“40 is just a number, but it looks damn good on you,” the Victoria’s Secret model captioned the photo. “I wake up every morning more in love with you….happy birthday to my WHOLE LIFE. You’re so cool you’re so cool you’re so cool.”

The picture of The Voice judge and Prinsloo getting hot and heavy on the beach doesn’t do the ink justice, but among the many tattoos Levine has, his vintage mermaid sticks out the most. While finished in 2016, tattooed by Bryan Randolph of Spider Murphy’s Tattoo shop in San Rafael, California, it had taken six months to finish. The tattooer is, in Levine’s words, “the DUDE.”

The mermaid angel is cradling a skull is surrounded by swallows.

Levine got the VIP treatment for that session of his mermaid tattoo, having the San Rafael artist over at his Beverly Hills abode, for what wife Prinsloo called a “house call.”

In getting the ink, particularly the background, Levine covered up his old “Frankie Girl” tattoo honoring his late dog. The clouds cover up a pinup girl on his left shoulder blade and a paw print tattoo on his right shoulder blade.

Randolph’s work covering the ink is impeccable, and if we didn’t know the previous tattoos existed, we never would have guessed that this was a cover up. The mermaid scene is a phenomenal example of American Traditional tattooing done right.

As Mashable pointed out in its analysis of the tattoo, it’s a winged mermaid dominating his back. Mermaids are often symbols of seduction, luring in sailors and the like. “Maybe the mermaid’s skull is a souvenir she kept from a paramour?” Or maybe it is the angelic mermaid’s seductive acceptance of death.

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