Drake's Face Tattoo Made Its Red Carpet Debut

I might need to add “celebrities getting itty bitty face ink” to my list of things that happen when Mercury goes retrograde because celebs keep showing off their neck-up ink. While the latest tattoo in question dates back to early August, Drake’s face tattoo made its red carpet debut on Sunday, Sept. 18, which gives me an excuse to write about how much I love this little tribute.

My favorite celeb face tattoos are delicate, tasteful, and — like Cardi B’s recent tribute to her son — have major significance that justifies their brazen location. Drake’s subtle face tattoo checks off all of the boxes. It’s so delicately done that, from a distance, you’d be forgiven for mistaking it for a blemish or a bit of hyperpigmentation. Get a little closer and you’ll see two letters, S and G, etched in a gothic-style font. When Drake made the face tattoo Instagram official on Aug. 11, he captioned the photo, “Sandra Gale.” That’s his mom’s name, y’all, and I’m not crying, you’re crying.

A tattoo of your mom’s name is basically the classiest face tattoo you can get. (No shade to Cardi B or Amber Rose, who both have tattoos of their children’s names on their faces. A little shade to Dominic Fike, who has an apple tattooed on his face in honor of his sister, but only because I hate Elliot, the character he plays on Euphoria Season 2.)

A tiny, subtle face tattoo of your mom’s name is so classy that it wouldn’t look out of place on a red carpet premiere, and, true to fashion, Drake’s face tattoo looked right at home at the world premiere of Amsterdam — for which he co-wrote a song — in New York City. The rapper paired his ink with a velvet Tom Ford suit jacket (in a shade I’m calling aubergine because velvet is too luxe a fabric to be saddled with “dark purple”), satin pants, shiny boots, and a crisp bowtie.

While Drake has shared posts on Instagram featuring his tiny tattoo, it’s a whole different story once the ink is red carpet official — I mean, we haven’t even seen Harry Styles have a red carpet official tat moment yet — and it’s notable that Drake didn’t cover his ink with makeup. Even with a tattoo under his eye, the look was so sophisticated that I can’t even write “AF” after the word sophisticated because this ‘fit is too elegant for that acronym. Instead, I’ll just say that Drake is doing his part to make subtle face tattoos mainstream and luxurious.

Thank you, Drake. Now I want one.