Ed Sheeran Pranks Fans With Real Lion Tattoo Fake Out

Ed Sheeran displayed a new lion chest tattoo on his Instagram, eventually telling fans the ink was fake, but it turns out it is completely real. The “Thinking Out Loud” singer showed off the completed ink on his social media page, with fans going into a frenzy over the large size of the art. Setting up his prank, he previously posted a half-done lion on his chest earlier in August. Sheeran, this week, posted a photo of his chest looking to be blank, telling fans that he was “only joking about the lion.” Well, it turns out that the tattoo was very much real, and that he used makeup to cover up the authentic tattoo for a television show, causing fans to raise their eyebrows in confusion.

Tattoo artist Kevin Paul talked about working on Sheeran’s chest art with Now Magazine, where he confirmed it to be real. "All I’m saying is it has taken me six hours so far to put it on his chest. [Ed] was going to go quite smaller," he says. "He kept saying, 'Bigger! Bigger! Bigger! Bigger!' I don't think me or Ed really thought there was going to be that much fuss over it."

 Only joking, covered it up for a TV show didn't I

A photo posted by @teddysphotos on Aug 26, 2015 at 2:41pm PDT

The lion ink is representative as a tribute to England’s soccer team’s mascot, as well as the singer’s accomplishment of selling out Wembley Stadium for three nights in a row. Paul claims that there is still much work to be done on the tattoo, but we are certainly seeing an impression of what Sheeran’s chest will forever look like after this. The singer even took to his Twitter to compliment the artist for putting up with “me complaining about the pain,” and that he “can’t wait to start the rest.” Ed Sheeran already has other quite random tattoos on his body, including a ketchup bottle, as well as a teacup.