Adam Levine Reveals Truth Behind Face Tattoo Photo

Maroon 5 fans recently thought that frontman Adam Levine had added a glaring tattoo to his body, but not everything is as it seems. In a photo that Levine’s wife, supermodel Behati Prinsloo, posted to Instagram, the former The Voice coach seemed to have a tattoo of a longstemmed rose next to his left eye. However, after a frenzy online, Levine clarified that it was a fake tattoo.

“This message is for my mother,” he said via an Instagram Story video, per E! News. “I do not have a tattoo on my face. Those that know me know, I am too vain, I’m too f—in’ vain to get a tattoo on my face. I’ll tattoo the rest of this, but no, the face has gotta stay the same.”

Levine got his last tattoo back in October: a massive butterfly and spiderweb on the front of his neck. The Maroon 5 singer took to social media to show off the new tattoo he had done on the center of his neck shortly after he was spotted out in Los Angeles for the first time with bright blue hair.

“Wise man once said…when Instagram goes down…tattoo your throat…,” he captioned the photo, referencing the Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger outage that took out the popular social media sites for almost an entire day. He then gave a shoutout to his tattoo artist, Nathan Kostechko, who has done several of his larger pieces, writing, “and his name was @nathan_kostechko.” Kostechko agreed in his own caption of the work that the star “really went for it on this one.”

Levine is no stranger to body art, debuting a massive leg tattoo in August that took artist Bill Canales 13 hours. “Today was ouch but worth it,” The Voice alum said on social media at the time, explaining that while some spots were “a little bit ticklish” to get tattooed, it was totally worth it for the permanent art. Levine has several other large tattoos, including a massive back piece featuring a mermaid and a “true love” tattoo dedicated to Prinsloo.

The musician first got a tattoo when he was 21 years old, getting a dove inked on his upper left bicep shortly after the Sept. 11 terror attacks. Levine explained to PEOPLE in 2013 after being named Sexiest Man Alive that the dove was meant as a symbol of peace during the dark time. “I was 21. It was five days after 9/11. I felt this needed to say something with this peaceful thing on my body,” he told the magazine at the time.

He also has several tattoos featuring animals, including a shark and an eagle. “I’ve always had a strange fascination with sharks. I actually think they are the most fascinating creatures on Earth,” he told the magazine of getting one of the ancient predators inked on his body. “I guess the tattoo had something to do with that.”