Thirty-six-year-old Leandro de Souza, once Brazil’s most tattooed man, is awing followers with a new look after several ink-removal sessions.
His life took a sharp turn when a divorce years ago cratered his sense of self, and he slipped into hedonism.
De Souza eventually ended up in a homeless shelter, where he met a woman whom he claimed “evangelized” him.
Highlights
- Leandro de Souza, once Brazil’s most tattooed man, removes the ink of 170 tattoos.
- Tattoo removal sessions are grueling, but de Souza says the pain is part of the price of past bad decisions.
- He regularly posts before-and-after pics showing his journey back to normality.
He has since removed most of the tattoos on his face using lasers and posted the swollen, raw, and painful-looking results to his Instagram account.
Leandro de Souza had 170 tattoos over 95 percent of his body
Image credits: leandrodesouzabless
“In 2023, I won the award for most tattooed man in Brazil at the Santa Rosa International Tattoo Expo,” he told Brazil’s O Globo.
“I lived off the flesh, had a life of s*x, d**gs, and rock ‘n roll,” recalled the now 36-year-old who got his first tattoo when he entered his teens.
Twenty-three years later, they tally up to 170, and before the removal procedures started, they covered 95 percent of his body.
A falling out with his ex-wife triggered a downward spiral of senseless hedonism
Image credits: leandrodesouzabless
The tattoos followed the falling out with his ex-wife eleven years prior and accompanied a journey of excessive substance misuse.
He described the period as one of “self-centeredness, with everyone taking photos, d**gs, and women.”
But he eventually grew weary of the life.
“I couldn’t stand the life I was living anymore. I was an attraction at an event, and I felt like a circus animal,” he said.
The decision was triggered when he landed in a municipal homeless shelter
Image credits: leandrodesouzabless
De Souza described his dependence on cigarettes, booze, and harder chemicals as a “captivity” that he endured until he landed in a municipal shelter in the Brazilian border town of Bagé, where he was introduced to religion.
“I entered the municipal shelter in Bagé. Within a week, there was a lady who referred me and started to evangelize me,” he recounted.
Then one day, he quit his bad habits cold turkey. This massive leap in the opposite direction, he admitted, was not only due to his own resolve.
Image credits: leandrodesouzabless
“The first step to everything in life is to accept that you can’t do it alone, that you’re [dependent], that you’re a d**g addict.”
The converted ink fanatic has to visit a parlor in São Paulo every three months for the procedure
And now de Souza finds himself under the searing heat of a tattoo removal laser every three months.
After his fourth visit to the Sao Paulo-based Hell Tattoo removal studio, which offered up the procedure for free after a video of de Souza applying for work went viral, he told a local outlet, G1.
Image credits: leandrodesouzabless
“My face is getting clearer every day, after the fourth tattoo removal session.”
He elaborated that the process was the farthest thing from easy.
He says the lasers are painful despite the anesthesia
“If you imagine that a person goes there to remove one from their finger and already complains of pain,” Desouza told the outlet.
“Imagine a session on the entire face, which involves three types of laser.”
Image credits: leandrodesouzabless
He explained that the process generally entails three stages, including ink removal, followed by the use of carbon dioxide “to rejuvenate and not leave a stain,” with the third being a “type of seal[ing] process.”
“It hurts a lot, no matter how much anesthesia they use,” he admitted. “The pain is horrible. But that’s part of the price for the things I did in the past.”
De Souza was misused as a child and subsequently adopted
Image credits: leandrodesouzabless
De Souza’s life started out difficult. As a child, his mother neglected him and he fell victim to the evil vices of a predatory army officer.
He was then rescued and adopted by a woman who is now interned in a nursing home
He was also jailed at a young age for fraud, but claims he was treated with respect by other inmates because of his tattoos.
Image credits: leandrodesouzabless
Image credits: leandrodesouzabless
Despite his conversion to observant Christianity, he insists, “Tattoos aren’t the devil's work; I just didn’t know how to handle it.”
The 36-year-old has a positive outlook on the future
De Souza aspires to find a job that will pay him enough so he can provide proper care for his ailing adoptive mother and support his 10-year-old son.
“I’m living with an understanding of everything so I don't have anxiety. I don't rush anything. Because there is a right time under heaven for everything,” G1 quoted him saying in 2024.
Some see Leandro De Souza as learning his lesson the hard way
