Teardrop tattoo
type of tattoo
The teardrop tattoo or tear tattoo is a symbolic tattoo of a tear that is placed underneath the eye. The teardrop is one of the most widely recognised prison tattoos and has various meanings.
It can signify that the wearer has spent time in prison, or more specifically that the wearer was raped while incarcerated and tattooed by the rapist as a "property" mark and for humiliation, since facial tattoos cannot be concealed.
The tattoo is sometimes worn by the female companions of prisoners in solidarity with their loved ones. Amy Winehouse had a teardrop drawn on her face in eyeliner after her husband Blake entered the Pentonville prison hospital following a suspected drug overdose.
It can acknowledge the loss of a friend or family member: Basketball player Amar'e Stoudemire has had a teardrop tattoo since 2012 honouring his older brother Hazell Jr., who died in a car accident.
In West Coast United States gang culture, the tattoo may signify that the wearer has killed someone and in some of those circles, the tattoo's meaning can change: an empty outline meaning the wearer attempted murder.
Sometimes the exact meaning of the tattoo is known only by the wearer
as in the case of Portuguese footballer Ricardo Quaresma, who has never explained his teardrop tattoos.
“Teardrop tattoo” enters the record as type of tattoo. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Teardrop, tattoo and type can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7691764. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2012.
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This entry incorporates text from “Teardrop tattoo” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.