Heather Rae Young loves the tattoo that she got in honor of her fiancé, Tarek El Moussa, and she wishes people would stop criticizing her decisions.
“It was completely taken out of context, and the whole meaning of it was blown way out of proportion,” the Selling Sunset star, 33, exclusively told Us Weekly on Tuesday, February 23, about the backlash she received on social media. “And so, obviously you saw, I took it down. We woke up the next morning, and it was, like, so much negativity surrounded by something that was meant for my fiancé and meant with so much love.”
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Young debuted the dainty ink on her backside — which reads, “Yes sir, Mr. El Moussa” — on February 8 in an Instagram post captioned, “Happy Valentine’s Day Mr. El Moussa @therealtarekelmoussa. I love you handsome! Best Friends Forever.” Hours later, she deleted the photo from her feed.
“We took it down, which then stirred up more controversy,” she told Us. “But, you know, I don’t like negativity. I don’t like negativity on my page. I don’t like to read negativity. It really upsets me. And so, I’d rather just take it down and move on from that.”
The Netflix personality explained that she decided to head to the tattoo shop after she and El Moussa, 39, developed pet names for each other.
“It’s something cute we do around the house,” she said. “It’s like, you know, Daddy’s the boss and Heather’s the boss. And so, he’ll say something and I’m like, ‘Yes, sir.’ And then I’m like, ‘Yes, sir, Mr. El Moussa.’ And he’ll say, ‘Yes, ma’am, Ms. El Moussa.’ … I know that they say names are the kiss of death for tattoos, but it’s [going to be] my last name too, right?”
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The Flip or Flop star previously defended Young’s ink after an Instagram troll asked him, “Do you love the tattoo?” alongside two vomit emojis. In response, El Moussa wrote, “Yes, so much.”
In fact, the HGTV veteran has even considered getting his own version of the tattoo.
“We actually talked about that,” Young told Us on Tuesday. “He’s like, ‘I’m going to get your name.’ And I’m like, ‘OK, well, what name are you going to get?’ I don’t know if he will, to be honest. But, you know, maybe he’ll get it in the same spot. I don’t know.”
The couple got engaged in July 2020 after one year of dating. El Moussa was previously married to Christina Haack from April 2009 to January 2018, and they share daughter Taylor, 10, and son Brayden, 5. The Christina on the Coast star, 37, is also the mother of son Hudson, 17 months, with estranged husband Ant Anstead, from whom she split in September 2020 after two years of marriage.
The Tarek’s Flip Side star exclusively told Us in January that Young is “such an amazing stepmom” to his two children, adding, “They really do adore her.”
With reporting by Christina Garibaldi