Tattooing can be an intimate job. Artists spend hours in close physical proximity to clients, sometimes one-on-one in a private space. For most, that connection is positive—a chance to hear stories and leave someone with art they’ll carry forever. But one New Jersey tattoo artist says she experienced the nightmare version of that setup when a client turned predatory.
TikTok creator Tay Nicole Clinch (@taynictattoos) posted a lengthy storytime about the experience.
Her video has been viewed more than 148,300 times, with viewers calling the encounter disturbing and urging her to file a police report.
Tattoo Client ‘Takes Himself Out’
Clinch said a man came in requesting a dove tattoo on his hip.
At first, she says he seemed quiet and polite. Though when she showed him the design, she says “he looks at it like he has never seen that a day in his life.” She asked if he’d changed his mind with her assistant, but he denied it.
Normally, she says she would reschedule a confused client. But since it was the last appointment of the day, she explains she decided to move forward. It took almost two hours of back-and-forth before they agreed on something.
The odd behavior started right away, she recalls. He wouldn’t sit still and kept asking to stand. And at one point, she says he requested if she could tattoo him while he was upright—something she refused.
The Moment It Escalated
As the tattoo session continued, Clinch says she noticed the man becoming aroused. At first, she brushed it off as potentially involuntary.
But soon, she says she caught him through a mirror with his hand down his pants. By the end, she alleges that “he has completely taken himself out of his pants. He is wiping the tip off.”
Even then, she says she tried to get him out safely. “I pretend I don’t see it… I just need to cover him and send him on his way.” When she applied the aftercare bandage, however, she claims things got even worse.
“He pulls the string [of his trousers], therefore pulling his entire erect [private part] out of his pants,” she describes. “It comes out, slaps me in the hand.”
Clinch says she told him to cover himself, trying to calculate how to leave the situation without escalating it. She says he eventually paid and left, though not before hinting he might hang around to call the fire department.
More Harassment Online
The ordeal didn’t end at the shop. Clinch says she later discovered a new Instagram account using her photos and then woke up to find that the same man had scrolled through her personal profile, liking years’ worth of posts in the middle of the night.
At that point, she says she felt shaken but still unsure how much law enforcement would act on. “Everything he did was incredibly inappropriate, but he didn’t try to attack me. He didn’t try to touch me,” she says.
However, eventually Clinch says she decided to go to the police, explaining she mainly wanted a paper trail. But officers told her what happened in the studio already counted as sexual assault, she recalls.
She says they later informed her the client’s behavior seemed “premeditated” and quickly issued charges of criminal sexual contact and lewdness, leading to his arrest.
Although he has since been released until trial, Clinch says she’s now focused on keeping her studio safe. “I just want to exist,” she says. “I won’t let someone take that power from me.”
@taynictattoos Storytime: 💀 The day a man full on whipped out in my studio (part1) #storytime
Commenters Call It Out
Viewers were horrified by the story, saying Clinch had already endured enough to warrant a report.
“Oh my god. WHAT. At this point, I’d open a women’s-only appointments shop. That’s so scary,” one person wrote.
“File a report. This is SA and ppl get put on the registry for this. Do you have cameras?” another asked.
Others pointed out what seemed obvious in hindsight. “HE WAS WALKING THE HALLS TO MAKE SURE NO ONE ELSE WAS IN THE BUILDING!!!!” one user said.
“Him exposing himself is enough to get law enforcement involved. I’m so sorry this happened to you,” another added.
BroBible has reached out to Clinch via TikTok direct messages for more information.