Chris Brown has made headlines for something other than his music or club fights. The R&B singer-dancer has ignited an online firestorm after unveiling what many have speculated was a tattoo of a battered woman. Now his tattoo artist is speaking up. 

“I hate when people misinterpret what I do,” Brown’s tattoo artist, Peter Koskela, to E!NNews. “It was really a blow to me to think that people would think so little of a person that I would actually put a picture of a beaten woman on his neck. That was crazy to me, that he would come to me and say, ‘Hey, I want Rihanna’s face on me.’ I would never promote any kind of domestic violence like that. Even if he asked me to do it, I would have bounced right there.”

The image called in to question his brutal 2009 physical assault of ex-girlfriend Rihanna. But on Tuesday (Sept. 11), Brown and his representatives dismissed such talk.

A spokesperson for Brown told E! News that the female portrait was a combination of “a sugar skull” (associated with the Mexican celebration of the Day of the Dead or Dia de los Muertos) and a “MAC cosmetics design.”

And to further make the claim, Brown took to Twitter. 

I’m an artist and this is art. Dia de los Muertos.

— Chris Brown(@chrisbrown) September 11, 2012

But even Koskela, the artist, had to admit that the image was a bit misleading. 

“When I did see the picture and his head was cocked to the side, it did look like it was rough around the edges. People thought it was a beat-up face, but it takes two weeks to heal because the neck is constantly moving.”

His new body art comes just days after Rihanna tweeted a picture of her new tattoo, an image of the Egyptian Goddess Isis across her torso and under her breasts. She said it was to honor her grandmother. 

Goddess Isis- Complete Woman – Model for future generations- #GRANGRANDOLLY – always in and on my heart #1lo instagr.am/p/PXz4f2hM3N/

— Rihanna (@rihanna) September 9, 2012

Brown’s body art has been blanketing his skin for some time. Aside from his “sugar skull,” he recently inked a flying jet cruising above the his belly button. He tweeted about the tatto before he flew in for the final ink.  

“About to go in on this #fighterjet #f16 #plane #tattoo on #chrisbrown,” posted tattoo artist John Petro, the man responsible for the work. —Keith Murphy, CBS Local