Justin Bieber wants to cover up his tattoo tribute to Selena Gomez.

Justin Bieber

Justin Bieber

The 'What Do You Mean' hitmaker had a portrait of his ex-girlfriend inked on his arm when the pair were dating but admits he has tried to conceal it with some "shading".

He told GQ magazine: "This is my ex-girlfriend, I kinda tried to cover her face up with some shading, but people still know."

Meanwhile, it is unlikely the 21-year-old singer - who has 52 tattoos to date - will be getting an inking of his rumoured love interest Hailey Baldwin just yet as he previously admitted he worries about "damaging" her.

He shared: "What if Hailey ends up being the girl I'm gonna marry, right? If I rush into anything, if I damage her, then it's always gonna be damaged. It's really hard to fix wounds like that. It's so hard ... I just don't want to hurt her.

"I know that in the past I've hurt people and said things that I didn't mean to make them happy in the moment. So now I'm just more so looking at the future, making sure I'm not damaging them."