Calum Best

TV presenter

The first tattoo I got was ‘Best’ on my lower back when I was 15, in Venice Beach. Where I was growing up in LA, it was very popular at the time to get your last name, and all my friends were getting it done, so I did too. I’d say my most significant tattoo is either my dad’s initials and his date of birth on my neck, or a rib script I have, saying, ‘trouble to triumph,’ which describes turning my life around.

Since the first tattoo, I have been addicted. I get new ones all the time. Sometimes I don’t think twice and then years later I feel regret, but then I think, ‘No regrets!’ Anyway, each tattoo represents a different time or place or feeling in my life at that time, and they were a big part of the culture and lifestyle I have lived through, as young man, and even now. But there’s no chance I would get a girlfriend’s name tattooed onto me!

I use my body art to express myself. For example, although my Best tattoo is my oldest and worst-drawn, it’s something I used to create the logo for my first fragrance, which has continued to sell amazingly for me for seven years now.

My father wasn’t crazy about my tattoos, but then, I think he knew that I wasn’t crazy about a lot of what he got up to, so he never questioned it. And, in fairness, most of my tattoos express a thought or feeling related to my old man, or how I have felt in life about a situation created with him.