The Ultimate Guide To Angelina Jolie's Many Tattoos

When it comes to body modification, tattoos are very common. According to a 2023 Pew Research Center survey, almost one-third of Americans have at least one tattoo, and 22% have more than one. The research also found that women are more likely than men to have tattoos. While that may be the case, when we look at celebrities, it's not often that we come across many women with tattoos, let alone a bunch of them. Because of this, it's easy to be enthralled by Angelina Jolie and her plethora of tattoos — a collection that continues to grow.

"I love them. They're body art," Jolie told Post-Modern Ink in 2010, according to Marie Claire UK. "I don't think it's abnormal that someone who spends their life in other skins wants to claim their own by marking things on it that matter to them."

While some of her tattoos might be obvious, some are far more nuanced, and others she fully keeps to herself. But if you ever wondered what's going on with all that ink, now is your chance to find out, and maybe gain some inspiration for your next tattoo.

If you're old enough to remember the days when Angelina Jolie dated fellow actor Billy Bob Thornton, then you probably recall the tattoo that Jolie got in honor of him: a dragon with his name. To no surprise, the relationship didn't last long — they seemed like an unlikely match in the first place — and Jolie had that tattoo removed. In its place, she added the geographic coordinate tattoos of where each of her six children were born, as well as Brad Pitt's.

In a 2011 interview with "Extra," per Us Weekly, Jolie was asked about the seventh coordinate to which she responded, "Well, if they know that it's latitude and longitude they would have figured out quickly that it was Brad's birthplace. It doesn't take much investigation to figure that one out. [The coordinates are] Shawnee, Oklahoma." Although considering their messy divorce, it might be safe to assume that tattoo won't be around much longer.

Of all the visible tattoos that Angelina Jolie has — she has a massive Bengal tiger on the lower half of her back the public rarely sees — it's her upper back that's truly impressive. At the base of her neck, she has the words, "know your rights," as in the song by The Clash. On her left shoulder blade, she has a Buddhist spell that's not only in honor of her son Maddox, but is meant to protect the person who has it on their body.

Along the center of her back, Jolie has the traditional Thai tattoos of Yant Phutson Sak Yant and Yant ViHan Pha Chad Sada, the former meant to bring good luck, and the latter for protection. The pieces were done by Ajarn Noo Kanpai, who is a master in the technique of Sak Yant tattooing. These types of tattoos and how they're done are a far cry from sticker sleeve tattoos — you need to go all in with these works of art.

In the early summer of 2024, Angelina Jolie was spotted rocking a (very) new tattoo on the inside of her arm that read "Stay Gold." As Jolie told CR Fashion Book in September 2024, "I got 'Stay Gold' with my daughter Viv during our time with 'The Outsiders.' It means so much to us separately and together. There is also a bird that I share with some of my children that is personal to us."

On the same arm, Jolie has the Roman numerals "XIII V MCMXL," which represents the date 13/5/1940. That's when Winston Churchill became the British Prime Minister and gave his speech about waging "war against a monstrous tyranny." If having a tattoo that's linked to the beginning of WWII seems a bit strange, Jolie explained that she got it for the 2008 film, "Wanted," in which she plays an assassin. "We tried to focus the tattoos on themes related to this sense of justice," Jolie said in an interview, per Vanishing Tattoo. "From Churchill's speech, 'We have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat', I had 'toil' and 'tears'. Instead of taking mine away, which we have to do in every film, we ended up leaving mine and adding more. I have 'strength of will' in one language, and we added it in four other languages on my arm." It was also for this film that she got The Clash tattoo — talk about dedication to your craft.

On her right arm, just below the inside of her inner elbow, Angelina Jolie has a tattoo in Arabic. According to Body Art Guru, this tattoo also exists in a spot where she had a Billy Bob Thornton-related tattoo. Simply, this tattoo is the Arabic word for "determination" or more specifically, "strength of will."

In the same spot on the opposite arm, Jolie has a quote from Tennessee Williams' play, "Stairs to the Roof," that reads, "A prayer for the wild at heart, kept in cages." As Jolie told Rolling Stone in 1999 regarding the tattoo, "I don't think I know one person who I think can be completely who they are every second of the day, who feels completely free. So it's kind of a prayer for everybody to find their happiness, to break out."

Although we don't see the lower stomach tattoos that Angelina Jolie has as often as we used to, she does have a quote and cross there. The quote reads, "quod me nutrut me destruit" which is Latin for "what feeds me, destroys me." As for the large black cross, it's a tattoo she got in Amsterdam in 1995 just before marrying Johnny Lee Miller (of "Trainspotting" fame) to cover up a dragon tattoo, per Popsugar.

Of course, we've just hit the tip of the iceberg of Jolie's tattoo collection. She has such an affinity for them, and there's really no telling what's happening on the parts of her body we don't see — or what new tattoo she might be getting this very moment.