A brief history of knuckle tattoos

The original love/hate tats appeared on the knuckles of a psycho preacher, who trotted out his good v evil baloney as a cover for murdering widows for their cash. Whereas this tattoo appears on the knuckles of an annoying singer, who trots out his sub-Rat Pack baloney in order to rinse widows for their cash.

MoviesAs Night of the Hunter is reissued, we look at knuckle tats from Robert Mitchum to Blawan

ROBERT MITCHUM
Love Hate

Robert Mitchum in a still from the film The Night of The Hunter.

The original love/hate tats appeared on the knuckles of a psycho preacher, who trotted out his good v evil baloney as a cover for murdering widows for their cash.

ROBBIE WILLIAMS
Love

Photograph: Jo Hale/WireImage

Whereas this tattoo appears on the knuckles of an annoying singer, who trots out his sub-Rat Pack baloney in order to rinse widows for their cash.

RIHANNA
Thug Life

Rihanna

Rihanna used her digit decor to merk the moral arbiters who seem to have her confused with Ban Ki-Moon ("I'm thinking I shoulda got a teardrop instead!!" she tweeted).

JEREMY PAXMAN
Good Nite

Paxman

Whereas Paxo used his digit decor to merk David Dimbleby ("I'm thinking I shoulda got an eagle riding a Harley instead!!" he didn't tweet).

BLAWAN
Kick Drum

Blawan

UK techno's enfant terrible uses his knuckle tat to advertise the content of his records. His enthusiasm wouldn't extend to letting us have a photo of it, though.

LARS VON TRIER
Fuck

Photograph: Francois Guillot/Getty

Cinema's oldest enfant terrible uses his knuckle tat to advertise the content of new movie Nymphomaniac. What you don't know is that the other fist reads "Me Sideways".

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