Rick Genest, better known as “Zombie Boy,” and Lady Gaga collaborator, died at 32
Rick Genest was found dead at his home in Montreal on Thursday
Rick Genest, better known as “Zombie Boy,” and Lady Gaga collaborator, died at 32. A talent agency that represented him confirmed the death of Rick Genest, a Quebec model and actor, who was known for his head-to-toe bone tattoos and participation in the Lady Gaga music video “Born This Way.”
Out of respect for Rick’s family, Rick & his legacy I apologize if I spoke too soon as there was no witnesses or evidence to support any conclusion for the cause of his death. I in no way meant to draw an unjust conclusion My deepest condolences to his entire family and friends. pic.twitter.com/CJ9AdOJ22j
— Lady Gaga (@ladygaga) August 4, 2018
Dulcedo Management confirmed the passing of Rick Genest on Facebook Thursday. Dulcedo said it “was in shock” and called the 32-year-old an “icon of the artistic scene and of the fashion world.”
Rick Genest was found dead at his home in Montreal on Thursday. Police sources told Radio-Canada that his death is being classified as a suicide. As news of his death broke, tributes poured in to the artist – who went from living on the streets of Montreal as a squeegee kid to high-end modelling shows in Paris and Berlin.
Lady Gaga, who had cast Rick Genest in her 2011 Born This Way video, wrote on Twitter: “The suicide of friend Rick Genest, Zombie Boy is beyond devastating. We have to work harder to change the culture, bring mental health to the forefront and erase the stigma that we can’t talk about it. If you are suffering, call a friend or family today. We must save each other.”
The suicide of friend Rick Genest, Zombie Boy is beyond devastating. We have to work harder to change the culture, bring Mental Health to the forefront and erase the stigma that we can’t talk about it. If you are suffering, call a friend or family today. We must save each other. pic.twitter.com/THz6x5JlpB
— Lady Gaga (@ladygaga) August 3, 2018
Gaga’s stylist, Nicola Formichetti, who used Rick Genest as a model when he was creative director of Thierry Mugler, said he was “absolutely heartbroken”.
The art we made was sacred to me and I was emotional, he was an incredible artist and his art and heart will live on. Rest In Peace 🙏 You beautiful soul. pic.twitter.com/0gXTJ6cHYB
— Lady Gaga (@ladygaga) August 4, 2018
A Facebook account appearing to belong to Rick Genest hinted at depression in a recent post. The May post shows a photo of Rick Genest sitting in a hospital bed, wearing the Kill Me shirt that he often wore for interviews and photos with a tongue depressor hanging from his mouth.
The post echoed a 2012 interview with the UK’s Evening Standard, in which they noted that Rick Genest was reticent to delve into details of his private life. After Rick Genest mentioned – seemingly apropos of nothing – “Depression is a strong thing…” he refused to elaborate when pressed by the reporter.
In a TedX talk last year, titled Normal is an Illusion, Rick Genest described growing up in a small town in Quebec that was riddled with political and racial issues. “French versus English, Mohawks versus the White, very few Blacks and even less other nationalities in between,” he told an audience in Austria.
His parents’ strict religious beliefs kept him sidelined from most school celebrations, forbidden from taking part in what they saw as pagan rituals; carving pumpkins at Halloween, crafting Christmas tree decorations and painting Easter Eggs.
Rick Genest, who was better known as Zombie Boy or Rico, was born on Aug. 7, 1985, in a small town in Quebec. He said he had grown up fascinated by freak shows and tattoos.
“Even from age five I used to spend any pennies I had on bubble gum that came with transfer tattoos and stick them up my arms,” he wrote in the newspaper The Irish Mirror in 2016. “I’ve always wanted to look different.”
In school, he said, students found themselves neatly fitting into categories. “Are you a jock, a nerd, a prep, a rapper, a metalhead?” he said in 2016 at a TEDx talk in Austria.
Amid the jocks and preps of high school, Rick Genest found his place among what he described as the “least favourite of all subcultures”: the goths. “Every day was a battle of final demise, suffering in agony in a world of the ignorant and chipper, bullied by most and befriended by few,” he said.
As a teenager, Rick Genest was diagnosed with a brain tumour. Doctors warned him that the surgery to remove the tumour would leave his face disfigured for life. After a six-month wait for the surgery, doctors presented him with another option; a new laser technology that would leave his face intact but which was a gamble, as it had only been carried out successfully on one other person in North America. Shortly after Rick Genest’s 15th birthday, he told the audience in Austria, “I stepped out of the hospital as the second person in North America to survive this new state-of-the-art procedure.”
Years later, Rick Genest had run away from home after an argument with his mother. He left home for Montreal, spending the next five or six years sleeping rough, earning money by washing windshields and dodging cops while soaking up the city’s punk scene. It was around that time that his tattoos began to multiply. “I gradually started resembling a human doodle board, riddled with tattoos,” Rick Genest said during his TedX talk.
Eventually Rick Genest met tattoo artist Frank Lewis. The pair devised a theme of a rotting corpse to blend his many tattoos into a tattoo that would cover his whole body, with blackened eye sockets, flesh withering off bones and cockroaches crawling up his neck.
As he turned 21, he got his most eye-catching tattoo; a skull tattooed on his face. At 22, Rick Genest shaved off his two-foot high mohawk to tattoo an image of his brains on his scalp.
His foray into international fame came soon after, when the UK’s Bizarre Magazine saw photos of Rick Genest on MySpace and travelled to Montreal to meet him. “When they printed the pictures, they used the name ‘Zombie Boy,’ and that was that,” he said. From there, photos of him began to spread and his career snowballed.
Rick Genest then received requests to model in fashion shows, perform in freak shows and appear at tattoo conventions. Lady Gaga approached him in 2011 to participate in the “Born This Way” video, in which she wore makeup that resembled his tattoos.
That same year, Rick Genest made it into “The Guinness World Records” for “most insects tattooed on the body” — 176.
Rick Genest also worked as a representative for L’Oréal’s Dermablend, a concealer that covers tattoos. He appeared in several movies, including “47 Ronin” (2013), with Keanu Reeves, and he played in a band with the Rob Zombie guitarist Mike Riggs.
Rick Genest explained his phantasmagoric appearance to Wonderland magazine in 2012: “The zombie concept is also often used as a metaphor for runaway consumerism. Rebelling from this notion is the very meaning of punk. The origins of the zombie creature came about from stories of people being buried alive in times of plagues and such crises; that would come out the other side transformed.”
He added: “Zombies, to many, represent a pervasive xenophobia. As in my life, I was often out-casted, hated or misunderstood.”
Rick Genest wrote in The Mirror that he was proud of achieving his boyhood dream of becoming “a freak.”
“And yes,” he wrote, “Please do stare, I like it.”