WHAT I LEARNED ON INKMASTER
S
o it’s over. 13 seasons, hundreds of millions of dollars generated and approximately 200 artists who decided it was a good idea to put a gun to the head of their career in front of the whole world. I am one of those artists who “competed” on Inkmaster and I have seen what happens behind the camera. You want to know about the reality of reality TV? Ok. I’ll tell you. I’ve been waiting....
Y
es being on TV has certain perks. You see your face on billboards and advertisements all over the place. People recognize you and ask to take pics with you and for you to sign stuff, brag that they
met you, hold doors open for you and buy you drinks. It’s like having nice tits. But the novelty of that wears off really fast. Then you start to notice other things like people being fake nice to you, like REALLY fake nice, to an embarrassing level. And not just strangers, but also some of the people that you’ve known for years or even decades start acting weird around you, like if you’re with them in public when someone notices
you and makes a big deal; they get all stressed out and start huffing and shit, like it’s your fault. Try going to the midwest or anywhere in rural America. I walked into a little diner somewhere in Illinois with my friend Amy Nicoletto (if you don’t know her she was on L.A.Ink and looks like the type of chick that would be married to Dracula) and the whole place just stopped. Everyone just stared straight at us like we couldn’t see them or something.
“I make more in one full day session than I made the entire 2 months on Inkmaster.” We got seated awkwardly and no one stopped staring. They just pulled out their phones and started googling. When they figured out who we were they sent a little girl over to ask us to take pictures with them, probably figuring we wouldn’t yell at a little kid on the off chance we were dicks about it.
16 Villain Arts Tattoo News Magazine 2021 Issue 2
Then there are the people who assume that I was on TV so I’m rich now. Well guess what, we get minimum wage while filming. I make more in one full day session than I made the entire 2 months on Inkmaster. Actors are rich because of something called royalty checks which are issued to the person in the show every single time that show is aired. BUT, the cunts at Inkmaster make you sign away your right to continued on next page
