An ‘addicted’ tattooee shares her reason for wanting them removed: people think she’s a ‘bad girl’ because of all the ink.

Inspired by Lady Gaga’s flowery back tattoo, Australian Lauren Burnside, 30, had her first piece done when she was just eighteen, a set of flowers on her stomach.

She collected additional ink in the years that followed, adding eighteen more, at a cost of almost $20,000.

The 30-year-old, who at first loved the art, is now getting rid of her tattoos one by one after growing to “hate” them. She has already had nine of them laser-ed off and is currently working on six more.

She acquired the tattoos as a “coping mechanism” when she was depressed, but she later “regretted every single one” and is getting rid of them because she can’t stand attention from the public. 

She was ‘essentially covered’ by 25,when the appeal wore off, and the heavy inking attracted comments in public and criticism from her family members.

She said: ‘I feel like they are the first thing anyone sees when I’m wearing shorts or a dress and it makes me feel incredibly insecure.

‘People make assumptions about me and my personality based on how I look – especially the older generation.

‘I’ve heard whispers of snarly remarks and been looked up and down in public, and it hurts.

‘I’ve found that because of my tattoos, men interact with me differently. They immediately assume I’m a ‘bad girl’ or a ‘biker girl’, which isn’t the case.

‘They also assume I’m promiscuous and often over-sexualise me because of the way I look.

‘I also come from a family of ‘clean skins’ – neither of my parents have a single tattoo so you can imagine their shock when I started getting heavily tattooed.

‘My mum warned me [and] she knows me better than I know myself. She knew I would regret them but at the time I couldn’t be reasoned with.