Loved up couple become Guinness World Record holders for being the ‘Most tattooed senior citizens’
Charles 'Chuck' Helmke and Charlotte Guttenberg are the new record holders for most body art in the male and female categories
MEET Charles “Chuck” Helmke and Charlotte Guttenberg – the new Guinness World record holders for ‘Most tattooed senior citizen’ in the male and female categories.
What’s more, Chuck and Charlotte are a couple – after the pair first met in a tattoo parlour.
Chuck, 75, boasts an impressive bodysuit of tatts, with a whopping 93.75 per cent of his body covered in artwork.
Just his face and his toes remain un-inked.
Chuck got his first tattoo when he was in the US Army, in November, 1959. After getting a few more tattoos with some army buddies in 1960, he then took a 40 year break where he didn’t get any more work done until 2000.
Charlotte, 65, a writer, is similarly adorned in colourful designs, but says that she is “not done” when it comes to her tattoo collection.
Charlotte’s body is 91.5 per cent covered, but says: “I have an area on the front of my chest and I also have a big area on my torso [to fill].
“I still have a lot of work to do and we’re both working on maintenance too.”
Interestingly, Charlotte only got her first tattoo 10 years ago, in 2006. She had always wanted a tattoo, but hadn’t been able to as her husband, who had passed away, had always been against the body art.
She told The Sun Online: “I got my first tattoo in September of 2006, it was a birthday gift to myself.
“I had always wanted tattoos and it hadn’t been possible until that point to get one.
“I decided that I wanted to do a bodysuit and I started working on it from that point forward."
The couple met in 2006 – when Charlotte was in the chair for a tattoo.
Chuck said: “We met at the tattoo studio in November 2006, while she [Charlotte] was getting a tattoo done.
“She was having trouble in the chair, she was in for a long time, I sat with her and talked with her to take her mind off it and that was kind of the beginning of it.
“A couple of months or so went by, and we got together again, we had a little cappuccino in a park and I swooped her up in a big Hollywood kiss and she followed me home and that was that!”
And it seems that there was instant attraction for the couple, who live in Melbourne, Florida.
Charlotte added: “I was attracted to him [Charles] immediately…although I tried to deny it, that only lasted a few months!
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“He was telling you the truth when he told you I followed him home!
“He’s a very good kisser!”, she added.
While he is open to the idea of getting more tattoos, Chuck claims that the lack of space left on his body is the main thing holding him back.
Over the past several years, he has competed at tattoo, garnering titles and public attention for his extravagant body art.
Chuck explained: “There’s not much room left on me, I’m not going to do my face, and my toes have been so mangled by martial arts and stuff I don’t think anything’s going to look good on them!
“If I got inspired by something I really liked, I could just go over something or have something lasered off - but I really like the way my body’s worked out.”
Charlotte added: “With tattoos there’s maintenance, sometimes there’s lines that become broken or a little accident happens and you end up doing something to mar the tattoo, so there’s all little repair work and things like that to be done all the time.”
And when it comes to their tatts, the pair can’t pick a favourite piece of art.
Chuck said: “I don’t have a favourite one tattoo, we are asked that quite a bit, but I can’t pick out one piece on my own body, they’re all pretty close together,
“It’s difficult to say ‘ah this little piece there’, it’s a small part of a big piece - so we usually just kind of cop out on that question!”
Charlotte agreed: “I actually agree with him, all our work is close together as one gigantic piece.
“It’s just really difficult to pick out one thing.
“My first tattoo was a butterfly sitting on a peony on my upper right breast, it’s rather small, maybe three and half inches in circumference, so it’s not big at all but it was the beginning.
“We just kept working up from that.”
The loved-up pair are both thrilled to be taking their record-breaking titles in the 2017 edition of Guinness World Records.
Chuck says that it is an “honour and that he has “great anticipation” for what the future has in store for him, while Charlotte describes the experience as “Magical, amazing, and unbelievable.”
Guinness World Records 2017, is out 8 September 2016. Find Guinness World Records on Twitter at @GWR and #GWR2017 or on.