Whoopi's tattoo caused a commotion on the red carpet at the Oscars. I tattooed Whoopi a little over 10 years ago at her loft in Soho she lived in at the time. She sent her driver over to pick me up with my equipment and a massage table. She said she liked dragons, I was pretty surprised when she went for such a good sized dragon tattoo going over her shoulder onto her chest. I never really got a good picture of it. It's hard to get a good picture of a fresh tattoo, there's always a glare when the tattoo is still shiny and irritated and this was before camera phones made taking pictures so easy. Back then it was common to shoot a whole roll of film and be lucky to get one decent tattoo shot.

The funny thing is that I still remember when I got my first visible tattoos done on my arms. I got a black panther on my forearm from Mike Perfetto in Brooklyn. This was about 1993 and you didn't see many women with big tattoos back then. Girls didn't get tattoos, let alone get tattoos on their arms. I remember waking up with that panther and all I thought was, "Wow, I'll never be one of those girls who can wear a fancy dress." Not that I was ever a fancy dress kind of girl but I knew I had crossed a line and could never go back. Of course about a week later I got something done on my other arm to compliment the panther. I never would have thought that over 20 years later one of my tattoos would make it to the red carpet, fancy dress and all.

Michelle Myles