In an effort to start again, Ethan “ModBoy” Bramble is receiving laser surgery on his face. Bramble has more than 200 tattoos covering his body.
At the tender age of eleven, the American opted to have his ears stretched. Since then, he has undergone a number of modifications, including the removal of his belly button and the acquisition of a split tongue.
On the No Filter series of LadBibleTV, the tattoo enthusiast confessed that he had shelled out about $60,000 AUD (about £36,000) for his alterations.
However, the new dad did confess that he felt remorse for the scorn he had received from others due to his peculiar hobbies.
“I guess you could say I regret some tattoos. Not just regret, I think there’s a difference between regret and wanting to be perceived differently,” he confessed.
Ethan continued by saying that he is anxious about going about his day-to-day life, such as bringing his little daughter to school, without fear of criticism.
Also, he hinted that he wouldn’t want his kid to follow in his footsteps and get a face tattoo when he was young.
“The face is a big thing that can lead to so many – for some people, not everyone – can lead to a lot of problems for yourself, which I probably wouldn’t want my daughter to have to deal with until she was a bit older,” he continued.
“I wish that I had not gone as hectic as I did on my face.”
Ethan went on and admitted that he has been undergoing excruciating laser surgery to try to tone down his extreme look.
He said: “I’ve been getting laser [surgery], or have been, for pretty much 12 months… We do it in sections, but I’ve probably gone over the full thing six or seven times.
“I started getting it done because of the anxiety and stuff I was getting… Mental stuff is a funny thing to pin down, but I want to think that a lot of the anxiety was from just having a face full of tattoos.
“I’m happy with the way that I look, but I’m also happy with the mentality that over the next two years, my face tattoos are going to become less and less and less. I’m just clearing the canvas.”
Problems in the past…
On Wednesday, the Victorian Police said that they had issued a warrant for his arrest, stating that Bramble was well-known to visit the Preston, Windsor, Ringwood, and CBD areas of Melbourne.
However, Bramble, who hails from the Central Coast of New South Wales, claimed he was no longer in Victoria and that he didn’t anticipate being extradited by police.
Bramble initially made fun of the police by joking about his arrest warrant: “I’ve never once seen him in my life.”
Hours later, the 23-year-old seemed to mock police once more by live-broadcasting a video on Instagram in which he expressed uncertainty about whether or not to report for duty.
The young father pondered that if he ran away to NSW, he didn’t think he would be extradited back to Victoria.
Being a well-known but controversial member of the ‘Blokes and Their Ice-Creams’ Facebook page, the highly tattooed man is wanted for what he said: ‘Nananana you’ll never catch me. Cream of the bros.
“P.s if I go down I’m taking all you biccie first biters down with me.”
While certain members promptly chastised Bramble for his purported offenses, others urged him to ‘cream on’ and elude detection.
Bramble claimed he was “going home to eat lasagne” and considered his choices before being observed requesting a ticket to “Rosehill” on a bus.
“Well, now you know where I live,” he grinned at the camera.
The 23-year-old’s last known address in NSW is the Rosehill neighborhood of western Sydney, according to AAP.
It’s unclear if NSW Police has been contacted by Victoria Police to speak with Bramble.
He addressed the almost 200-person audience, saying, “I smoke too much, I drink too much, I don’t want to go to jail,” before ending the livestream on Wednesday.
“Hopefully I don’t get life in prison, later crew.”
In a recent Facebook post, Bramble appeared to be nodding along to the anti-authoritarian rap song F**k the Police by N.W.A. while waiting for a bus.
According to a Victoria Police spokesman, Bramble’s warrant was issued when he neglected to show up for his court appearance at the Melbourne Magistrate’s Court.
The Melbourne West Police Station and the Victoria Police refused to say what Bramble was wanted for.
Modboy previously garnered media attention when he appeared on Studio 10 and displayed his most recent body alterations, which included a silicon spider embedded beneath the flesh of his hand.
He said that the physical changes will make him “the coolest grandpa ever” to the Studio 10 hosts.
At the age of eleven, Bramble experimented with body modification by stretching his ears and became fascinated with tattoos.
He began hanging out at tattoo parlors at the age of 13, where he was exposed to more radical body alteration techniques.
He describes having his tongue split when he was 17 as the most drastic adjustment he has ever experienced. He was forced to sleep upright for five days while in agonizing pain in order to prevent choking on his own saliva.
Bramble asserts that he has undergone over 40 physical changes.
This involves having his tongue split, his labret (the area beneath the bottom lip) sliced, his nostrils punched, his bellybutton removed, his eyeballs tattooed, and each ear chopped so that half is missing.
“I’ve always been into different stuff to all the other kids, from a young age I’ve had full blackout tattoos, scarification, eye balls tattooed, ears chopped off, tongue split, navel removal,” he had previously told Daily Mail Australia.
