Dave Bautista Used to Have a Manny Pacquiao Tattoo. He Covered It When He Found Out Pacquiao Was a 'Homophobe'
Dave Bautista and Manny Pacquiao—two icons in their respective fields. They were once close friends, but that soon changed when Pacquiao revealed his stance on the LGBT community. It marked the end of their friendship, and Bautista made it permanent by getting rid of the Manny Pacquiao tattoo he once had on his arm.
Tattoos tell you the story of a person’s life, the good and the bad. In an interview with GQ, Dave Bautista revealed the story behind the Manny Pacquiao tattoo that he covered up when their friendship ended.
“I have a lot of cover-ups. I think cover-ups are a part of your life story. You have regrets, you make mistakes, and you try to fix them as best you can and that’s what they are. Cover-ups are repairs of mistakes,” said Bautista.
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The wrestler-turned-actor shared the story behind his many cover-ups for tattoos dedicated to an ex-girlfriend, an ex-wife, and in Pacquiao’s case, an ex-friend. During his interview, Bautista pointed to a tattoo of a woman’s face surrounded by roses, a cover-up of an old tattoo once dedicated to his friend.
"It used to be a team logo. I was part of a team of a person I considered a friend and someone I really looked up to. And then, he later came out publicly with some anti-gay statements and turned out to be an extreme homophobe,” said Bautista, a vocal supporter of the LGBT community. “So, I had a huge issue with it. It's a personal issue with me, my mom's a lesbian. And I just could no longer call him a friend. So, I had it covered up with this.”
Fans first got wind of the end of their friendship in 2016 when Pacquiao publicly called gay people “worse than animals.” Pacquiao, a born-again Christian, is notorious for his conservative views. Shortly after this statement, Dave Bautista told TMZ that Pacquiao “was a fucking idiot.”
"You can't come back from that, man," said Bautista. "I don't think it's funny. Let's put it like this, if anyone called my mother an animal, I'd stick my foot in his ass."
Pacquiao later apologized for comparing gay people to animals, although he’s stood by his anti-LGBT beliefs. But for Bautista, there’s no going back. Friendship. Over.
