Unmasked, the tattooed freak who's become Lady Gaga's new best friend (but it turns out he's really a mummy's boy)

By Fiona Roberts


Gruesome look: Rick Genest, also known as Zombie Boy, shot to fame when he appeared in the music video for Born This Way with Lady Gaga


Covered in skeletal tattoos to make his body resemble a decomposing corpse, Lady Gaga's latest video co-star probably isn't the kind of man you'd take home to meet your parents.

The mysterious 25-year-old has shot to fame after displaying his macabre body art in Gaga's video for Born This Way.

But MailOnline can reveal the man behind the tattoos - Rick Genest, a Canadian model known as Zombie Boy - is a doting son who always texts his mum back.

Grim: Genest looks macabre - but is in fact a good son who always texts his mother back

Muse: Genest walked alongside Lady Gaga at Formichetti's debut catwalk show for Thierry Mugler last week


His mother Catheryne today described her son as a 'quiet, loving boy', who waited until he was 16 to have his first tattoo out of respect for his parents.

Genest, whose entire head and torso are covered in gory tattoos, seemed to come from nowhere - and it turns out Nicola Formichetti, Gaga's stylist, quite literally plucked him from obscurity.

Until January he was living on the streets of Montreal, where he was living as a 'bum', doing everything from window-cleaning to performing as a circus freak to pay for his next tattoo.

Now bilingual Genest is a catwalk star, modelling Thierry Mugler's latest collection for Paris Fashion Week.

Blank canvas: Rick Genest, left, is pictured here before he began transforming his face and body with tattoos to make him look like a decomposing corpse

Rotting away: Somehow Genest makes Lady Gaga look conservative


The self-described 'punk' is a well-known figure in the Quebec city, where he spent three or four years slowly inking his body, spending at least $7,000 on tattoos.

In 2006, he told Bizarre magazine his tattoos were 'about the human body as a decomposing corpse – the art of a rotting cadaver. It’s also a tribute to horror movies, which I love.'

He has 20,000 fans on his Facebook page - where Formichetti, Thierry Mugler's new creative director, first found him - and is a popular figure in the city's underground scene.

He grew up and went to school in Chateauguay, a Montreal suburb, and left home at 17 after he finished high school.

Good big brother: Genest also looks out for his younger brother and sister, his mother says

Art: Genest is using his entire body as a canvas


Despite his unconventional lifestyle, his mother said she is proud of her son - and he always replies to her text messages, even now he is leading a glamorous life on the catwalks of Europe.

His mother said: 'He's doing what he wants to do. He's always been a very artistic person and a good student - he's so artistic.

'People go their own way. Rick has lived his own way by choice.'

Mrs Genest, 47, called her son as 'unique', and said he is a 'fantastic' brother to his two younger siblings, who are 20 and 22.

They have taken more conventional routes - his brother is at university and his sister works in a hospital. Mrs Genest describes herself and her husband Roc as 'very conservative', but said they have accepted their son for who he is.

'Loving boy': His mother Catheryne said she is proud of her son Rick, who she described as a 'unique child'


She said: 'Rick will always be himself. He's very loving to his family, and faithful to his friends. His grandparents love him very much, he has been to family weddings, everybody has always accepted him as himself.'

'Within the family he is a very loving boy, he's very respectful to us.

She said: 'At stores, people will stop and look, but he's never been embarrassed by his tattoos. He's a quiet boy.'

But she says there are two sides to every story - and is quite happy for him to have a very different image outside the home.

Genest waited until he was 16 to have his first tattoo, but his mother said they were always his 'passion'.

Most of his designs were inked by Montreal tattoo artist Frank Lewis, who said Genest first came to him when he was 21.


Circus freak: Rick Genest used to lie on a bed of nails as part of an act in Montreal
They work through the designs together, then Mr Lewis traces an outline in marker and fills it in free-hand. Each session takes between two and four hours.


According to Mr Lewis, when Genest first asked him to tattoo his face, he said no - but then he went to another artist and Mr Lewis had to fix it for him.

He said Genest is entirely tattooed from the waist up. The most painful part was the black inking on his nose.

But Genest is not done yet. He wants to extend his gruesome body art down his legs, too - and in an interview in January said he had even had his tongue slit, to make him look like a reptile.

But talking to his mother, it seems whatever he does, Genest will still be welcomed home.

She said: 'He's not a bad boy at all. He is unique and we love him the way he is.'


Source:dailymail