Soap star sparks Hollyoaks mystery of which cast member had tattoo name of ex covered up
Plus, Charlie Clapham opens up about his own collection of body inkings
THE son of a tattoo artist, Hollyoaks actor Charlie Clapham has revealed that someone on the Channel 4 show desperately required his dad’s help to cover up a troublesome tatt.
Forget the last real-life mystery to surround the Cheshire-based soap of who pooped in a prop toilet on-set, we want details!
Charlie, who plays bad boy Freddie Roscoe exclusively told The Sun Online: “I can’t name the person, but there was someone who worked at Hollyoaks who had my dad cover up a once upon a time loved one’s name with a very elaborate drawing.
“We saved his later love life with that drawing and he was very grateful. My dad did it in my kitchen up here [in Liverpool]. That was a funny old day that,” the 25-year-old laughed.
The services of Charlie’s dad Martin Clapham were called on again recently when the Leicester lad’s character gets a tattoo of his girlfriend Ellie Nightingale’s face in an attempt to get back in her good books after he is caught cheating with another woman.
Describing getting to work with his pa on it, he said: “My dad has loved my involvement with the show over the past three and a half years and jumped at the chance to get involved with the behind the scenes stuff.
“We did a print which we had to jazz down because it was a really accurate line drawing. We put the print on and then five people in makeup all staring at my a*** for like half an hour trying to make it look like it has just been done, layering it with red makeup, trying to get that kind of sore effect.
“We were all arguing about how it should be done and I was thinking for once I’m entitled as the son of a tattoo artist I’ve seen these things since I was a toddler. So I was like, ‘look, a new tattoo would usually have a protective layer of clingfilm over it. You can still see the tattoo and get away with having it look really sore without people looking at it and going ‘aw, that’s really badly done and blah, blah, blah’.
“I was really happy with how it turned out. My dad was overjoyed with it.”
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With a huge collection of body art himself, Charlie is adamant that he won’t be turning up in an episode of Tattoo Fixers anytime soon.
He explained: “My dad has done every single one of them so touch wood if anything happens to him then I’ve got his artwork all over my body that I’m immensely proud of and each one has got its own story.
“There’s one on my ankle he did of a polka chip with the date and time and place I had it done in the Bellagio in Las Vegas on my 21st. My mates had the same design done and you just can’t beat those kind of stories.
“A person goes ‘oh, you’ve got a polka chip on your ankle?’ I go ‘yeah, my dad did that in a penthouse suite in Vegas.’ I don’t think even Brooklyn Beckham can say that about his dad!”
Charlie – who is also a professional body piercer by trade at his dad’s shop – has even had a go at tattooing himself.
He recalled: “I did some tattooing at a very young age. I was 13 and it was done on an old punk rocker called Jono who is a bit of a roady for
The Damned. A later tattoo design I did for him actually featured on one of their album artwork which was kinda cool.
“He has been a family friend for years and my dad actually learnt to pierce on him back in the late 80s. My dad was like, ‘Charlie wants to do some tattooing, would you be happy him doing it?’ He said: ‘Sure, of course, I’ll come down, blah, blah, blah, I’m back off tour’. We got him in the chair and I had a great time.
“Going back into school on Monday morning saying I had just done a tattoo at the weekend, everyone was like, ‘Nah! Nah, you haven’t, Clapham’s a liar!’ So I got out the picture out and boom, there you go.”
A lack of patience and a desire to be an actor meant that Charlie didn’t pursue a career in tattooing full-time, body piercing was another matter though.
He enthused: “I ended up being the shop’s body piercer from about the age of 18-years-old which was fantastic, I loved it.
“There are not a lot of other jobs that you would put above body piercer I think as a young lad
“Going out and girls saying ‘oh you pierced my nipple the other day! Can I buy you a drink?’ It was a great way of meeting the girls before I was on television.
“I’ve never really had anyone come back in with a problem from a piercing of mine so it was always a happy thing people going ‘aw, thank you’.”
Hollyoaks airs weeknights on Channel 4 at 6:30pm with a first-look on E4 at 7pm.