Ariana Grande has insisted her new leaf tattoo is not a ''cover up''.

The 'Break Up with Your Girlfriend, I'm Bored' singer had a leafy design added to her 'Always' ink on her ribcage, which she got last June, when she was with her ex-fiance Pete Davidson.

The 25-year-old pop superstar went to her regular tattooist Mira Mariah on Sunday (17.03.19) to extend the body art, and claimed she was not trying to hide the tattoo, which is thought to have been in the 'SNL' star's handwriting, instead she said the piece is ''evolving''.

Ariana, who kicks off her 'Sweetener World' Tour tonight (18.03.19) at the Times Union Center in New York, captioned the post of her new ink on Instagram: ''post run thrus, 3 am with @girlknewyork :) not a cover up just evolvin also, our show opens tomorrow. i love u and i'm so grateful. see u soon. (sic)''

The 'No Tears Left to Cry' hitmaker had a number of inkings done whilst she was with Pete - who is now dating actress Kate Beckinsale - including the numbers '8418' on her foot, a tribute to Pete's dad who died on 9/11, which she later covered up with a dog.

She also had a black heart inked over her 'Pete' tattoo and the comedian also had his Ariana bunny ears on his neck covered up with the same black heart shape.

Earlier this year, Ariana had a major tattoo fail when her '7 Rings' inking on the palm of her hand ended up spelling out a charcoal grill in Japanese, reading ''shichirin''.

Ariana laughed off the mishap and was reportedly offered $1.5 million to get her tattoo removed.

The 'Dangerous Woman' hitmaker had the tattoo amended from ''shrichirin'', but it ended up translating to ''Japanese BBQ finger'', and a tattoo removal company offered to help her remove it for the huge sum of money.

Acknowledging the error on her Twitter account, she wrote in a since-deleted message: ''Indeed, I left out [some characters] which should have gone in between. It hurt like f**k n still looks tight. I wouldn't have lasted one more symbol lmao. But this spot also peels a ton and won't last so if I miss it enough I'll suffer thru the whole thing next time (sic)''

The singer added: ''also....huge fan of tiny bbq grills (sic)''