Skylar Grey has spoken about tattoos tied to the woods, difficult years and how she feels in her own skin. “Woodrat” is written across her chest; a woodland scene covers her arm. She has also talked about what several hand and forearm pieces mean, and why she may remove one.

Woodrat on her chest ties the collection to the woods

Grey’s upper-chest script reads Woodrat. In her INKED tattoo tour, she said the name grew from her relationship with the woods and became a logo. She traced it to a period living in an Oregon cabin, when she felt broke, low and unsure of herself. Later, she said that time became a test: she wanted to prove she could get through hard conditions and manage on her own.

For Grey, the word marks that stretch and what she learned she could handle. Someone seeing it might take it for a nickname or band name; her account points to the cabin years and self-reliance.

She has connected those cabin years to the perspective behind Love the Way You Lie, which she wrote before it became a hit for Eminem and Rihanna. Grey made that connection herself; the tattoo is a personal marker, not album artwork.

The chest lettering is direct and easy to read, set among denser black-and-gray work that climbs over her shoulder and arm. Mister Cartoon did the chest piece. The photos show where it sits; Grey’s interviews supply the story behind the word.

Woodrat is easy to spot in portraits, while the arm work takes a closer look. The lettering sits near the center of her chest; Grey tied it to a personal memory as well as its later use as a logo.

Her arm and hand tattoos turn wilderness into a changing scene

Grey’s arm is the collection’s most detailed area. Tye Harris created a woodland sleeve with a jackalope, snake, bear, eagle, mountains and wolf, with the phrase “The journey is the reward” worked into the scene. Grey has described the forest as the overall setting; she hasn’t assigned each animal its own symbolic meaning. The woods connect it back to Woodrat.

Smaller work continues from her forearm to her fingers. In the INKED tour, Grey talked about a rose on the back of her hand; she said it helped balance feminine and masculine elements in her tattoos. She also discussed GREY across her knuckles, which she connected with the unknown possibilities ahead.

Other pieces reach beyond the arm. Grey said she likes owls as birds of the night and has one on her side. A thigh tattoo draws on Aubrey Beardsley’s 1893 illustration The Peacock Skirt, and a Japanese phrase meaning “Save the whales” sits on her foot. Those designs move from wildlife to literature and an environmental message.

Grey has said she may remove the Deathly Hallows tattoo on her forearm because she thinks it was poorly done. She recalled getting it while drunk in Las Vegas. She speaks about it as a choice she views differently now: some tattoos have a story, others are visual choices, and a few may no longer suit her.

Conclusion

In INKED, Grey linked her tattoos to being sensitive and wanting to feel tougher and less easily pushed around. She also spoke about assumptions people make about tattooed women. That is her experience, not a claim about what tattoos do for everyone.

She said Angel With Tattoos came from a real feeling of being judged by her fiancé’s family. The song gives that experience a public form, but it doesn’t mean every tattoo is a shield or maps directly onto the song.

The collection includes chest lettering, woodland art, hand and knuckle marks, a literary image, an environmental phrase and a tattoo she may remove. Grey has described different reasons for different pieces: some carry memories, some were visual choices, and feelings about a design can change. For readers looking for inspiration, the useful point is that a tattoo can hold a place, a feeling, a preference or a complicated memory without sharing one universal meaning.

Watch the official Angel With Tattoos video below for another view of the visual world she built around the song.