Hayley Williams announced her divorce from longtime partner Chad Gilbert in July 2017, leaving her with a regrettable tattoo of his initials “CEG” across three of her fingers. She covered them up with three black squares in February 2018. The boxes mean that she no longer has to see his initials, but going for such a dark cover-up makes it much more difficult if she ever wants to have laser removal.
This tattoo is something that Hayley doesn’t want to talk about for obvious reasons. When asked about her latest tattoo in an interview, she joked “how deep do we want to go?” and then proceeded to talk about her second most recent.
The troubles in their relationship are apparent throughout the lyrics of Paramore’s 2017 album After Laughter. Writing those songs actually made Hayley realize that their marriage was beyond saving. In an essay for Nylon, she wrote:
Writing kept me alive. Forced me to be honest….It helped me realize that I shouldn’t have ever married my ex and that love is not something we can just extract from one other.
