A Connecticut Army vet has taken home two Guinness World Records after inking and modifying 99.98% of her body — and is still carving out space for more.
Esperance Lumineska Fuerzina officially became the most tattooed woman and the woman with the most body modifications in history as part of a decade-long project that saw her tattoo her eyeballs and inject scale-like implants into her scalp.
“I think it’s obvious I’m not trying to adhere to traditional beauty standards, and that can be both liberating and also something many people don’t understand and can be negative about,” Fuerzina told Guinness World Records.
According to the new record holder, her body represents a moving canvas that follows the theme of “turning darkness into beauty.”
That artwork includes ink on her tongue, gums, eyeballs and even her genitals.
But Fuerzina didn’t stop there. She also boasts 89 body alterations — including 15 subdermal implants, a forked tongue, nipple removal and 18 genital piercings.
Fuerzina’s lack of fear at undergoing intense changes in the most delicate parts of her body helped her blow past her record-holding predecessors.
The Army vet narrowly won over the previous most tattooed woman, Charlotte Guttenberg, whose body was 98.7% covered — but Fuerzina easily smashed the record for body modifications. The previous record of just 40 stood untouched since 2012, just waiting for the Connecticut woman to claim it.
According to the new record holder, her path to becoming a title winner was nothing more than a coincidence.
Fuerzina had been painting and mutilating her body for more than a decade — peppering it with memories of world travels and drawings from friends — before a friend mentioned she had a chance at winning the title.
“I was initially a little apprehensive,” Fuerzina confessed, looking back at the application stage, “but I wanted to try to showcase the strength of women, and what’s possible, by applying for the record myself.”
Her love for ink started at age 21, when she received her first tattoo: a symbol on her hip tied to her time with a former love interest that she soon covered up.
Fuerzina moved on to body mods just a few years later, starting with her split tongue.
She mostly creates her own drawings, but often lets her trusted tattoo artists run wild with creative energy, using her body as a drawing board, she said.
Even now, with little space left on her body, Fuerzina shows no signs of slowing down: “In terms of my body being covered, it is still hard to imagine a set ending.”
“Of course, I am not done!”
