When we last checked in on New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson’s tattoo situation, the only ink she seemed to have was a New York subway token on her back. (She got it in 2003 to commemorate her return to the city from D.C.) However, during an interview on the podcast Employee of the Month (excerpted by Out Magazine) she said she “[has] now four” pieces of body art. “I have two then on my back that are the two institutions that I revere, that have shaped me,” she explained. “One is unsurprisingly the amazing ‘T’ in The New York Times newspaper. Then I have a Crimson Harvard ‘H’ and that’s for Harvard, and also for my husband Henry … we met when we were in the same class at Harvard.”
The two letters, plus the aforementioned subway token, only add up to three tattoos. But the interview, which ends with Abramson saying that she “[feels] like shooting [herself] for spending, like 10 minutes, talking about such a trivial thing,” doesn’t include a description of the last one. So, what is Jill Abramson’s fourth tattoo, and why didn’t it make it into this piece? We sort of want to know.
Update: The Guardian’s Jon Swaine points out that a extended version of the podcast conversation between writer Catie Lazarus and Abramson includes a mention of the fourth tattoo: it’s the palmetto tree and crescent moon found on the flag of South Carolina, where she once lived. Mystery solved.
