Carson Daly has a permanent reminder of a past relationship, but it looks nothing like the tattoo he originally had in mind.
“The Voice” host revealed that he once had an ex-girlfriend’s name inked on his ankle after a night of drinking. During the Nov. 12 episode of “TODAY With Jenna & Sheinelle,” Daly shared the story while discussing Pete Davidson’s tattoo removal journey with his co-hosts.
Daly Has Multiple Tattoos
Daly explained that most of his body art has a deeply personal meaning. He estimated that he has around 15 tattoos, including tributes to his family and his grandfather, who served as a Green Beret.
“I have like 15 tattoos, and they’re all very personal,” he said.
“My grandfather was a Green Beret. His whole green beret is here,” Daly continued, pointing to one of his arms. “I have a 9/11 tattoo. I’ve got my daughters, my son, my family. So, I have all stuff that I’ll never remove.”
One tattoo, however, did not carry the same sentimental value over time. Daly admitted that he eventually needed to cover the name of a former girlfriend after he began dating someone else.
“That’s gotta go. Like, first things first, that name on your ankle’s gotta go,” he recalled the woman telling him.
The solution came during an already lengthy tattoo appointment in Hell’s Kitchen, New York City. Daly said he had been sitting in the chair for approximately six hours when he suddenly remembered the old ink was still there.
“I told my guys, ‘Oh my God, I forgot. You’ve got to just do something with the ex,’” he explained.
Daly Opened Up About the Hilarious Cover Up
Rather than choosing a specific design, Daly left the decision to the tattoo artists. One of them came up with an unusual idea, and about an hour later, Daly got his first look at the finished cover-up.
“Now I have a crab claw coming out of a pocketknife,” Daly reported. “It’s a crab. Let me say that again. It’s a crab claw coming out of a pocketknife, and it’s a cover-up.”
The unexpected design prompted a conversation about why people sometimes make tattoo decisions they later regret. Jenna Bush Hager pointed out that someone getting a partner’s name permanently inked might not imagine the relationship ever ending.
“The problem is, when you got that tat on the ankle, you didn’t think you were ever going to break up with that girl,” Bush Hager said.
Daly, however, had a simple explanation for how he ended up with the tattoo in the first place.
“No, I was drunk in the Jersey Shore,” he replied. “I was in Seaside Heights. I remember like it was yesterday.”
Although Daly did not identify the former girlfriend during the segment, he has previously discussed the ankle tattoo in connection with actress Jennifer Love Hewitt. The two dated for approximately a year in the late 1990s.
Carson Daly Reveals the Drunken Mistake Behind His Unusual Tattoo Cover-Up