Ariana Grande has suffered an unfortunate mishap, after getting a tattoo to commemorate the success of her latest single 7 Rings.
The track topped the charts in numerous countries when it was released earlier this month, and in a nod to the music video’s aesthetics, she had the song’s title tattooed on her hand in Japanese.
Well, sort of.
Ariana’s tattoo artist, Kane Navasard shared a photograph of the design, which features Japanese two characters.
However, it didn’t take long for fans to point out that the message doesn’t actually translate to “seven rings”.
“Ariana Grande’s new tattoo “七輪” means Japanese style bbq grill, not 7 rings. If you want to know about 七輪, just google “SHICHIRIN,” one wrote, in a message that has now been retweeted over 5,000 times.
Another user went into this in a little more detail, explaining that Japanese and Chinese both use kanji characters. If you read Ariana’s tattoo in Chinese, it does mean “seven rings”... but in Japanese, you get shichirin instead.
The correct (longer) translation of 7 Rings is included in the video’s title screen:
In a now-deleted tweet, Ariana responded to the mishap, explaining that if she’d a couple more characters included, the translation would have been correct.
“It hurt like fuck n still looks tight,” the tweet read. “I wouldn’t have lasted one more symbol lmao. but this spot also peels a ton and won’t last so if i miss it enough, i’ll suffer thru the whole thing next time.”
Upon its release 7 Rings broke the Spotify record for the most-streamed song in 24 hours, when it was played over 14 million times globally.
It’ll feature on her next album Thank U, Next, which is out in early February.