Emily Malice has always balanced art and rebellion. From goth schoolgirl to tattoo icon, she overcame rejection to forge her own path. Here, she shares her story.

I moved around a lot as a child, so it was quite hard to keep in touch with people. My brother and I spent a lot of time growing up in very isolated places. We’d have loads of beautiful scenery around us, but there weren’t really kids to hang out with, so we spent a lot of time drawing.

I was an introvert living in an extrovert’s body. I was quiet, but then I’d also have my moments of just doing something really loud and strange. I found so much freedom and escapism through drawing, which I still do now. You knew you could just let anything happen on paper.

I wasn’t very good at making friends. I kept myself to myself, but people would ask me to do satirical drawings of other people, and that was a way of making friends.

My dad’s a biker and one time we went to a bike rally. I forget where it was, somewhere in the Midlands. I remember there was this tent, and this chick was getting her lower back tattooed, and this guy was just there with a tattoo machine. I was like, ‘Wow that’s so cool, he’s drawing on her.’ It made me realise there’s a job where you can be an artist and not have to live a starving life, or need to die first to become successful.

From then on, whenever we went places, I’d check out the shops and studios and see what was going on. I had a very big curiosity about it. I would often be too young to go in and get tattooed, or even be in there half the time. 

"I forced my dad to tattoo me while I was standing on the kitchen table"

My dad did my first tattoo. I was 14 at the time. I designed this horrendous tribal star piece, and my dad bought a kit off eBay. Both my parents are tattooed. At school, the queen of the chavs had a tattoo, and I was like, ‘What? No. I need a tattoo,’ because you had the goths and the chavs, and I was one of the goths, so I needed a tattoo. My life depended on it.

So, I forced my poor dad to tattoo me while I was standing on the kitchen table, which is not how you’d want to get tattooed on your ankle. For me, it was a way of controlling my narrative and having a story on my skin, almost like armour in a way. An elegant armour.  

The first tattoo I did was on my brother with the same tattoo kit off eBay. He let me do a little line on his arm, and it was very wonky, very sparse. But I was like, ‘Yes, this is fantastic.’

Once I finished uni, I started trying to take my drawings into tattoo studios, and I got laughed out of pretty much all of them, which, you know, didn’t deter me, but it definitely gave me a thick skin. I was a naïve, fresh-faced little artist, kind of like, ‘Yeah, people are going to think this is fantastic,’ and then it didn’t go down so well.

But that’s fine. It got me to where I am now.

In 2020, I faced the challenge of losing my hearing quite drastically. That completely changed work, especially at a time where everyone was wearing masks. I couldn’t hear anything, and I’d just be really panicking.

I’ve always had bad hearing. I was meant to wear hearing aids about 10 years ago, and I just didn’t because they were the old bulky ones. Can you imagine what it’s like being a 23-year-old young lady turning up to a date, and someone looks at you like you’re disabled? You see the look in their eyes. They kind of go, ‘Oh, they’re disabled.’

So, I didn’t wear them, which resulted in me damaging my ears and losing 80% of the hearing in my low tones. It was a vulnerable time and quite hard. Luckily, my eyes are 20/20, and you know what they say; if one sense diminishes, the others heighten.

It’s brought me closer to some people too. So many customers are like, ‘Oh my god, I didn’t realise that you had that, and now you’re talking about it.’ That vulnerability has brought a new kind of intimacy.  

"It’s nice to be a bit crazy every now and again"

People come and get tattooed for all different reasons, like a love or a loss or just because they’re feeling a bit spontaneous that day. I did one of my mouth designs on a girl’s leg that said ‘sex work is work,’ and that upset a lot of people online. A load of dudes came through just kicking off about it, putting their two cents in, which always blows my mind. But for me, it’s something that is still so misunderstood. People go to sex workers for all kinds of reasons, and it should be respected and be more protected.

I also tattooed a sub once. His dominatrix requested that I tattoo ‘Property of [his mistress’ name]’, and I thought that was fantastic. But obviously, some people thought that was a bit mad.

A while ago, one of my friends needed to get some surgery. It was affecting their mental health, so we thought, what’s the quickest way to make money? He’s a tattoo artist, so we did a video of him tattooing my bum hole and sold it online. We thought we’d only get a few quid. Turns out we made a lot of money with that video (by the way, it’s not available anymore, so stop asking me about it!).

It was the right amount of chaos and wholesomeness together to make something that really helped someone I care about get something they needed. Plus, it’s nice to be a bit crazy every now and again, why not?

"There’s always going to be people who don’t like what you do"

Nowadays, I think there are so many people of all walks of life tattooing. I think it’s much more accessible. You can go to a tattoo school and just learn to tattoo, which was unheard of back in the day.

A lot of my tattoos have been done by guys, and they’ve all been quite gentlemanly, fantastic chaps. Unfortunately, you do get some miscreants. But, thanks to things like social media, if you’re an arsehole, people are going to find out that you’re an arsehole, and then no one’s going to come and get tattooed by you.  

I’d like to think that I’m a lot calmer now compared to earlier in my career. As an artist, I definitely care a lot less about what people think. There’s always going to be people who don’t like what you do, and you can’t change how they feel.

As told by Emily Malice to Stories & Ink. Some words have been edited for clarity.