Pete Hegseth Looks Like A Different Person Without All The Tattoos

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is famous for a lot of reasons — not least of all the numerous controversial things that have come out about him — but none are quite as indelible as the dozen or more tattoos covering his right arm and chest completely. It's a collection so extensive that if you ever catch him bare-chested, his torso alone will scream his belief system long before he opens his mouth. Whether it's the massive Jerusalem cross splayed across his chest or the "Deus Vult" crusader battle cry wrapped around his bicep, Hegseth's body art has sparked actual Senate hearing interrogations — with senators questioning if his ink signals extremist ties during his January 2025 confirmation. Considering how far Pete Hegseth got in school, you'd think he wouldn't need the intimidation factor. Yet here we are.

But what happens when you digitally strip it all away? Turns out, quite a lot. When photo editors erased the "We the People" script, the 1775 Roman numerals, the AR-15 American flag mashup, and the "Join, or Die" snake, what remained was a completely different person. The edges soften, and what you get isn't disappointing, per se, but a bit jarring.

It's amazing how much personality vanishes as soon as the ink does. The defense secretary has built his brand around being the alpha male warrior-poet that the conservative media can get behind, and those tattoos, whenever they are bared, certainly do serious heavy lifting in that department. Pete Hegseth only started getting body art in his late 30s because his father reportedly wanted him nowhere near a tattoo parlor. But once he committed, he decided to go all in. And between the tattoo conversation and the unfiltered images that fuel the Botox gossip, public fascination with Hegseth's appearance shows no signs of slowing down.

Some people might find the Crusader crosses and constitutional scripture inspiring, but the associations some of them carry are hard to shrug off. In fact, Hegseth got into trouble for his "Deus Vult" tattoo during Joe Biden's 2021 inauguration ceremony. The security detail flagged Hegseth as a potential threat and blocked him from participating after a fellow guardsman spotted the ink, Latin for "God wills it," which is a Crusader-era battle cry that has found renewed relevance among white supremacy groups. Hegseth's tattoos might be his most visible quirk, but they're hardly his only one. Add them up with the brutal nicknames he's picked up and everything else swirling around the Trump administration's most colorful cabinet member, and you get a figure who is never more than one news cycle away from the spotlight.