“Black Ink Crew” tattoo artist Young Bae recently opened up about the hardships women experience in the tattooing industry.
Bae was first introduced on the VH1 series in 2017 on season 5 after she was hired by Sky Days. The bilingual artist who’s from Seoul, South Korea, made it known she’s definitely a supporter of the #MeTooMovement during an interview with the “Domenick Nati Show” on Nov. 13.
The mother of one said women are often told by male tattoo artists that their artistry skills aren’t up to par compared to a man’s and are likely to experience some form of sexual harassment.
“I’ve been through a lot of, like, ‘You’re a woman, you can’t do this, you can’t do that, oh, if you wanna learn you gotta suck my d__k,'” said Bae.
(Young Bae talks about women in tattoo industry/Instagram)
She continued, “That’s why I opened up my own shop. … Because I didn’t want to deal with that. You don’t want to do nothing as a woman that you don’t want to do be successful. You just pray hard and God will give you whatever the f**k you want.”
Bae added that it’s common for women in the tattoo industry to deal with sexual harassment from their male counterparts.
The “Black Ink” artist has been extremely open about the struggles she endured before her days on reality television. She’s talked about how she and her family would sleep in shipping containers just to escape her extremely abusive father.
She told As Am News in September, “My faith for sure. Because my family life was strained, and I never shared my struggles with my friends, faith carried me through.”
Bae currently owns her own shop, Diamond Tattoos, in New York City’s Times Square. She also recently welcomed her baby boy Niko with her fiancé Rod in May. She wrote on her Instagram, “Nikko is here!!! ❤️😍 he came 5 weeks earlier and caught me and @imjust__chill off guard 😵❤️ he’s healthy and strong! Mommy and daddy Love You 👪.”
Check out Young Bae’s interview about women in the tattoo industry:
