The Late Kobe Bryant Had A Tattoo Appointment Scheduled With Mister Cartoon A Week After His Tragic Passing
By Sidra Lackey
clutchpoints.com
The late NBA legend Kobe Bryant had a tattoo appointment that was scheduled a week after the January 26, 2020 fatal helicopter crash he was in, alongside his daughter Gianna Bryant and seven other people — according to Essentially Sports.
Mark “Mister Cartoon” Machado, one of the tattoo industry’s most celebrated tattoo artists, was Bryant’s longtime tattoo artist and was scheduled to tattoo Bryant, if he had lived. The LA Times says Mister Cartoon was Bryant’s tattoo artist for over a decade. Cartoon tattooed the names of Bryant’s wife (Vanessa) and daughters (Bianka Bella and Natalia Diamante) onto the late basketball star’s arm, including the name of his 13-year-old daughter (Gianna Maria-Onore) who also died in the crash. Bryant had four daughters however. The newest addition to his family, born in 2019, was Capri Kobe, whose name he didn’t get a chance to tattoo on him.
“We actually had an appointment to get his daughter’s name on him,” Cartoon revealed in an interview with ESPN’s The Jump, where he talks ‘tattooing Kobe Bryant and designing the Clippers’ jerseys.’
A Netflix documentary in April 2020 called ‘LA Originals’ aired after Bryant’s death that profiled Mister Cartoon. Bryant gave a short tribute to Cartoon in the documentary. Bryant said in his ‘LA Originals’ interview, “Tattoos are a big thing in the NBA. I mean, not just in the NBA, but in sports culture in general. I always said, I had guys on the team who had tattoos, but they didn’t go to Mister Cartoon. And it becomes pretty apparent because I can’t read what the fuck’s on their arm anyway.”
Although the late Kobe Bryant unfortunately didn’t get his youngest daughter’s name Capri tattooed on him like he wanted to, his wife Vanessa got a beautiful tattoo with her name (along with their three other daughter’s names and Kobe’s name), like Bryant wanted to. And of course, the tattoo artist who tattooed her family’s names was: Mister Cartoon.