A woman whose body is 70 per cent covered by tattoos says she has lost work and gets followed round shops by security guards.
Sarah Hutchinson, 29, known by fans as Joey, is an actress and says the ink art which covers 70% of her body means she gets typecast as a criminal or homeless person. Colleagues tell her the artwork - which covers her arms and legs - is intimidating and people assume she's "mean".
Sarah, who starred in ITV's The Cabin, got her first tattoo - "4ever in my heart" on her wrist when she was 15 - and reckons she has spent around £7,000 on tattoos since. The personal trainer and musician says her hand tattoos of a star, a moon and the word 'why' are her biggest regret.
Sarah Hutchinson, 29, known by fans as Joey, is an actress and says the ink art which covers 70% of her body means she gets typecast as a criminal or homeless person. Colleagues tell her the artwork - which covers her arms and legs - is intimidating and people assume she's "mean".
Sarah, who starred in ITV's The Cabin, got her first tattoo - "4ever in my heart" on her wrist when she was 15 - and reckons she has spent around £7,000 on tattoos since. The personal trainer and musician says her hand tattoos of a star, a moon and the word 'why' are her biggest regret.
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00:00Hey, so I guess it's really weird that in 2024 you still get quite a lot of hate for
00:04having a vast amount of tattoos. Whether that is online and I'm receiving hateful comments
00:09like you'd look a lot better without, what have you done to yourself, you've destroyed
00:12yourself, what do your parents think of this, you're going to hell. I have a lot. Or if
00:18it's me walking into stores and everyone kind of assumes I'm a thug and I get followed around
00:23that store, or if it's meeting new people and their first thought of me is I'm probably
00:27not the nicest of people and that is literally down to what I look like and they're taking
00:32that from what I look like and that's probably the biggest one that kind of affects me because
00:36I'm a little softy and I get portrayed as not being as such. So that's probably the
00:42worst one. In the acting world I still find that they're very much not happy with tattoos,
00:48they'd rather pick someone who doesn't have them, they would not really employ someone
00:51with them all over their hands and stuff like that because they can't cover them and a lot
00:55of bits that I do get they will actually cover my tattoos if they do see one or two.
01:00Sometimes they say it's down to licensing but I just think that they're really not accepted
01:04yet on television, including when you watch TV, you don't really see them and if you do
01:08it's very much typecast which is what I will get so I'm a prisoner or something like that.
01:14So it does kind of affect my working world a little bit as well. I'm quite lucky to have
01:18a certain job where I actually kind of run it myself, I'm a personal trainer so I don't
01:22have too much effects there but I assume when I was working as a waitress I had a few issues
01:28because the public actually did say I don't want her serving me and that was literally
01:33down to the fact I had tattoos, that was a discussion I had to have with my boss one
01:36time which was really awkward and a bit sad. But yeah, it's weird, 2024 and yeah we still
01:41get judged like hell, it doesn't mean anything about my personality.
01:46Right!
01:48Hm.
02:07And I have one on my feet as well.
02:09Uh, yeah.