Actor Regina King won her first Academy Award during Sunday night’s Oscars ceremony, but the tattoo on the arm she used to hoist the golden prize got a little attention, too.
King, who won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role in “If Beale Street Could Talk,” explained to Vulture in 2015 that the tattoo is written in Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke during his earthly ministry.
A look backstage at @ReginaKing with her new best friend. #Oscars pic.twitter.com/v4PzqMToG7
— The Academy (@TheAcademy) February 25, 2019
The 48-year-old celebrity’s tattoo means “unconditional love” — a phrase she and her son, Ian, chose together before he left for college.
In 2017, King told the co-hosts of “The View” that she and Ian were taking Kabbalah classes together when her son told her, “Let’s choose three [designs] each and not tell each other which ones they are and whichever one is matching, that’s the one we’re going to get tattooed.”
“And we both chose ‘unconditional love,’” she added.
“His is huge — from his elbow to his wrist — but he said, ‘No, you can’t get that size, mom!’” King told Vulture of their matching tattoos. “We considered different ones, but we felt this really embodies how we feel about each other.”
Accepting the prize for her role in “If Beale Street Could Talk,” which tells the story of a Harlem woman who embraces pregnancy while she and her family struggle to prove her fiancé is innocent of a crime, King described herself as an “example of what it looks like when support and love is poured into someone.”
With tears in her eyes, King told her mother, who was sitting in the audience, “Mom, I love you so much. Thank you for teaching me that God is always leaning — always has been leaning in my direction.”
“God is good, all the time,” she said in closing. In response, many in the star-studded auditorium replied, “All the time, God is good.”