An Aussie model has opened up about how she struggled to find work because of her tattoos.
Amber Luke – who has inked 99 percent of her body, including her eyeballs – has spent over $25,000 on her body modifications, per The Daily Mail.
However, the model – who has earned the nickname ‘Dragon Girl’ – admitted that her tats have held her back.
In an interview with Brisbane radio show ‘Robin, Terry, and Kip’, Luke said frankly: “I’m not going to sugar coat it, it has limited my [employment] options.”
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She went on to say that – while her ink may have made it hard to find work – she doesn’t regret a thing.
“The way I see it is, I don’t want to work for a company that’s shallow-minded [and can’t] look past my image. They won’t look at my work ethic, they won’t look at my morals or my values or what I have to bring to the table,” she continued.
Elsewhere in the interview, she h!t out at people who criticize her for her look, saying that “everyone has their own opinions of what beauty is.”
“You see these cultures [where people] stretch their necks, their ears, their lips. But at the end of the day, we all are entitled to our opinion and that’s okay. But, what gets to me is when someone expresses their opinion to me in public and comes up to me and says, ‘Oh, you’re ugly’, or, ‘You’ve ru!ned yourself’,” she added.
“It’s very distressing to know that people have that strong opinion and they can just voice it without any repercussions,” the model said.
Luke has put her body through serious strain to achieve her individual look. One of the hardest moments came when she had her eyeballs tattoed blue – and was left incapable of being independent and crying bright blue tears.
But rather than letting the terr!fying experience dissuade her from future body modifications, Luke commemorated the pa!n with – you guessed it – a tattoo, getting an image of a woman crying blue tears inked on her chest.
Meanwhile, struggling to find work as a model isn’t the first time Luke has been discr!minated against because of her unconventional appearance.
A few years ago, her Instagram profile was removed for “breaching guidelines” – meaning she lost the 218,000 plus following that she’d spent years building up.
In an interview with the Daily Star, Luke described the loss of her social page as “dev*stating”.
“It took me about six years to grow my Instagram account. It took a lot of effort to build what I had made. Instagram removed my account because I ‘vi0lated the community guidelines’ – which in fact I did not,” she explained.
“It felt absolutely dev*stating to see six years worth of journaling and tattooing gone,” the model continued, adding: “I feel almost as though a part of my life has been taken away – business opportunities and being able to have such a positive influence on so many people.”