Rapper Lil Uzi Vert's $24 million diamond forehead piercing explained

Lil Uzi Vert debuted a new accessory on Wednesday with a video showing off a pink diamond attached to his forehead. Now, people are wondering how the rapper got the stone in place and if the seemingly major body modification is safe.

The 26-year-old rapper received a mixed response to his new look from people who called it a third eye or referred to Uzi as a Sims character after he shared the new accessory to Instagram. "Beauty is pain," he wrote in the caption.

While many assumed Uzi had the stone implanted into his forehead, according to Luis Garcia, the vice president of the Association of Professional Piercers, it's simply a piercing.

"It looks like he has what we would call a vertical bridge piercing, as in the bridge of the nose. That would be an actual piercing with a staple shape barbell that enters at one point, exits at another, and then the big diamond attaches to that bar on the front," Garcia tells Yahoo Life. "It’s a piercing, while obviously not super common in typical circles, it’s fairly common in piercing circles. ...Definitely not with a giant $24 million diamond on it. But it’s something that gets done."

With three decades of experience under his belt, Garcia says that the style of piercing is "not dangerous." However, the nearly 11-carat diamond that Uzi attached to it does pose some risk.

"With such a big piece, the weight of it, day to day life like washing your face, sleeping, rolling around, wearing a hoody, it’s just gonna be so easy to get that thing snagged. That’s really where the main concern is," Garcia explains. "The chances of it working out are slim."

It seems that Uzi has been waiting a long time to get the piercing done.

On Twitter, the Penn. native shared that he had been paying for the stone from a jeweler at Eliantte and Co. since 2017.

He then went on to answer questions about the stone and why he didn't just attach it to a ring, claiming that he is "literally tryna turn into a diamond."

Garcia admits that while he can imagine that the piece appears "scary" to those who don't know a lot about piercings, it's likely the overwhelming appearance of the diamond is what's leading people to raise questions and criticize the rapper.

"Sure, it’s ostentatious and it’s in your face but so is a grill to a lot of people, which Uzi wears," Garcia says. "It’s fashion."

Still, he wouldn't necessarily recommend that Uzi's fans and followers run out to get a surface piercing of their own to match.

"We’ve already had a couple of calls about people wanting it done. In one sense it incites interest, which is always good, getting more people that aren’t normally exposed to these trends seeing it and maybe gaining acceptance," Garcia says. "The hard thing, I would say, you have responsible piercers who would say no to doing something like that. But at the same time, just like in any other business, you have people that aren’t as responsible or businesses that don’t necessarily care that much about quality. So you’re gonna have piercers that are gonna do stuff like that no matter what because they think it’s cool, they want that money. So there’s a downside to it at that sense."

As for any health risks that Uzi might face for the piercing he got done and the quality of it, Garcia says the worst that can happen is an infection as the skin begins to reject the piece, pushing it out of place.

"Overall, not super risky," Garcia says. "Worst case, he’s gonna end up with a scar when the piercing rejects or fails, depending on how long he keeps it in."

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