By Ciara O’loughlin for Daily Mail Australia
02:52 19 March 2023, updated 02:52 19 March 2023
He became famous at the height of the paparazzi era in the early zero.
But tattoo artist Amy James, star of Miami Ink, NY Ink, Ink Master and more recently The Tattoo Shop, has revealed that she hates Hollywood and refuses to tattoo celebrities.
Despite being a celebrity himself, the 50-year-old doesn’t like working with famous clients and often refers them to other artists when they stop by his salons in New York, Miami, London and Cork, Ireland.
He told Daily Mail Australia that his distaste stems from bad experiences with self-absorbed stars who like to complain about life in the limelight while signing off.
“I have no desire to sit there and talk to some Hollywood chick about how hard his life is,” he said.
“I have no desire to listen to anything … they live in a narrow world and, you know, some kind of dark bubble, like it’s somehow like my life.
“And we have nothing in common.” And I just choose to be myself. I have no interest in that.
“So usually when they contact me about getting a tattoo, I’ll just send them to one of the guys in the shop and let them handle it.
‘Most of them [celebrities] are really hard to deal with.
Ami said he would rather tattoo a normal person, adding that he is much more interested in the art than the person.
“I’d rather tattoo the graveyard man, the garbage man. I prefer to tattoo the working class because I come from the working class,” he said.
Despite appearing in numerous reality shows, Ami said she doesn’t really enjoy being on TV and tries to avoid the glitz and glamor that comes with it.
“I despise Hollywood, I despise everything about it, I’m not in it,” he said.
“This is not my life. I’m just an artist and I love doing what I do. And I never stopped tattooing, even when I could.
“This is exactly what I’ve always wanted to do. It’s not that I only tattoo, but it’s just my passion. That’s what I like to do. That’s why I’m here.
“I hate doing TV, which is really weird because I keep doing TV.
“But I mean, there are two different types of people: people who do TV because they want to be famous, and people who do TV because it helps their business, because you’re smart enough to realize how much it helps your business to grow.
“And through that you can open up different channels.”
Ami spoke to Daily Mail Australia at the Australian Tattoo Expo, which took place from March 10 to 12 at the International Convention Center in Sydney.
While he said he’s grateful for the opportunities fame has brought him, such as traveling the world, the biggest downside for him is the loss of much of his personal life.
“The worst thing that’s ever happened when you become famous is that you lose your privacy,” he said.
“People keep thinking they know everything about you because they watched a terrible reality show, which is just ridiculous.
“It’s a terrible reality show. If you look at it and think anything in there is real, you’re a moron.
“And so you build this personality around the devil’s lie and you build this personality that is so far from your personality.
“I have never walked into one of my stores and yelled at the workers in my life. Yet that’s the persona I have on TV because it’s TV.
When asked if it bothers him that society might perceive him as someone he’s not, Ami said: “I’ve always said, ‘I’m surrounded by 80 percent of the horrible population of idiots.’ right So take it with a grain of salt. You know, it is what it is.