Those who follow tattoo news may have heard about the Belgian girl who claims she asked for three stars to be tattooed on her face, then fell asleep and woke up to find 56 stars there instead, and wanted to sue the tattoo artist:

Now, it turns out she made the whole thing up to placate her father, who was, perhaps understandably, upset at her new facial adornment:

[S]he told Dutch TV this week, “I asked for 56 stars and initially adored them. But when my father saw them, he was furious.”

The tattoo artist also said [she] had agreed to 56 stars.

“She agreed, but when her father saw it, the trouble started,” Belgian newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws quoted the man as saying.

I think the moral here is to always get informed consent, and maybe to be a little leery of 18 year-olds wanting their faces covered in tattoos. Kudos to the tattoo artist, Rouslan Toumaniantz, for seeing the real lessons here:

Toumaniantz, who is covered from head to toe in tattoo artistry, said the only thing he was disappointed in was having an unhappy client.

“I don’t regret it. To tell you the truth, this has given me some publicity,” Toumanaintz told The Telegraph.

He will now require written consent from clients before any procedure, he said.

I had always thought the catastrophic pain associated with getting a tattoo was contract enough–who would do that on accident?–but the man is wise. He didn’t do anything wrong, but it would be good for him to have a better way to prove that.

In the meantime, a pretty 18 year-old Belgian girl has a face intentionally covered in 56 stars. Maybe there’s a broader issue there than informed consent–just sayin’.