Zombie Boy

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Birth Date:
07.08.1985
Death date:
01.08.2018
Length of life:
32
Days since birth:
14114
Years since birth:
38
Days since death:
2067
Years since death:
5
Person's maiden name:
Rick Genest
Categories:
33 Club, Actor, Model, Suicide
Nationality:
 canadian
Cemetery:
Set cemetery

Rick Genest (August 7, 1985 – August 1, 2018) was a Canadian artist, actor, and fashion model born in LaSalle, Quebec. He was also known as Zombie Boy, so called for the corpse tattoos covering the majority of his body. During his modeling career he also promoted tattoo concealer.

Contents

Personal life

Before he had any tattoos, Genest was diagnosed with a brain tumor. He was on the waiting list for six months, where he contemplated his own life and possible death, before undergoing the surgery with minimal complications.

Leaving his house one day, he went for a walk and decided to live downtown, on rooftops or under bridges. Hitchhikingbecame his main method of transportation. According to his video, he started living "an anarchistic lifestyle". He claims to have already been introduced to punk rock, the punk scene and freak shows before his decision to tattoo himself.

Genest spoke about always being into horror films ever since a young age, and always wanted to express himself through it; the sideshow also being influential as well. As he grew up in Montréal, tattoos were very common within the culture. As he grew older, his tattoos grew, where he views his entire body as a one tattoo.

Career

Tattooed as a living skeleton, Genest also worked in various sideshows and freakshows across Canada as an illustrated man. Not long after beginning his facial tattoos, Genest was first introduced to the public on November 13, 2006 in a blog post by Shannon Larratt on BME's ModBlog, which was followed in March 2008 by his first interview, by which time his iconic tattoos were largely completed. In this interview Genest clarified that he preferred the moniker "Zombie" to "Skullboy", as BME had been referring to him. The introductions on RzyM's Channel led to increasingly mainstream media coverage, notably a June 2008 feature in 'Bizarre' magazine. In the 2009 made for TV movie "Carny", starring Lou Diamond Phillips as a small town sheriff, Genest was seen as a Tattooed Man at the Carnival. Following, he was again discovered by Marc Quinn, in Bromont, Quebec, where Genest was working with the sideshow, Alive on the Inside, at Carnivàle Lune Bleue during the summer of 2010.

On March 5, 2010, a Facebook fan page was created about Genest's unusual choice of tattoos. This page reached 1,526,292 members (as of November 19, 2011) and ultimately led to his “discovery” by Lady Gaga's fashion director Nicola Formichetti.

As a model

On January 19, 2011, Genest was featured in the new Thierry Mugler Autumn/Winter men's collection, headlining it on the brand's website, after his discovery by Formichetti, also Mugler's creative director. It was Genest's involvement and Gaga's urging which resulted in the menswear show, something not originally planned. His involvement also influenced Formichetti on the collection itself. The show was accompanied by a video featuring Genest, shot by fashion photographer Mariano Vivanco. He later featured alongside Lady Gaga in the fashion show for the women's 2011 Autumn/Winter line.

On February 27, 2011, Genest was featured in Lady Gaga's video for "Born This Way", with Lady Gaga wearing makeup to replicate Genest's tattoos. Genest was featured in the sixth volume of Vogue Hommes Japan in an editorial titled "Hard To Be Passive". In the Summer issue of GQ Style (UK), Formichetti and he are interviewed, with Genest shot in Mugler by Karim Sadli for the editorial.

In late 2011, Genest was featured in a campaign entitled "Go Beyond the Cover", promoting Dermablend professional makeup products, appearing in a video where a makeup team covered all the tattoos on his head, torso, arms, and part of his back in its concealer product. The advert then shows him sitting with the phrase "How do you judge a book?". He then proceeds to remove portions of the makeup, starting with a section of his chest to reveal the tattoo underneath, continuing to his face. The video then shows the process of applying the cover up played backwards. The commercial success of this campaign led to a 2-year endorsement contract with L'Oreal for Genest, who became its first ever male spokesperson. Genest also appeared in the music video of the Polish pop singer Honey. The video for her song "Sabotage" was released on 19 January 2012.

For the 2012 San Diego Comic Con, the Tonner Doll Company produced "Zombie Boy", a limited edition character figure in Genest's likeness. He was Tonner's guest at the convention as well. Included with each doll is a certificate of authenticity signed by Genest (as "Rico the Zombie"). The edition was limited to 400 dolls, all of which were sold as of July 27, 2012.

In September 2012, Genest became the face of the Jay-Z music fashion label Roc-A-Wear for its re-launch in Europe.

As an actor and musician

He was cast as the character "foreman" in the box office film 47 Ronin, which was released in late 2013.  The big-budget samurai fantasy-action film starred Keanu Reeves. Genest was heavily featured in the marketing for the film, appearing on posters and in trailers; however, due to various post-process tensions, stemming from the 2011 version of them film in which Universal executives wanted Reeves to become a more integral part of the film, Genest was heavily edited out of the final version.

Genest collaborated with British solo artist KAV on the single "Dirty Rejects" released May 21, 2013. They spent the first part of 2013 recording an album project and a video titled "Monsters Versus the World" in Los Angeles. The project was discontinued.

As of January 2015, Genest was working with Riggs, ex-Rob Zombie guitarist, on an upcoming collaborative album. On the horror news site Bloody Disgusting, a “Zombie Boy 666 Medley” video was released featuring samples of six songs to be on the upcoming album.

In June 2017, as part of the TEDx #DISRUPTyou, a video of Genest titled “Normal is an illusion” was released. His talk explores some of his life experiences and how he realized that normality is simply a cultural construct, “Normal is what you make it to be.”

Planned to unveil in 2019, an 11.5-foot (3.5 m) sculpture of Genest called “Self-Conscious Gene” will be a new permanent fixture at the Science Museum, London, UK. The statue is to be created by British artist Marc Quinn.

Death

On August 1, 2018, Genest was found dead in his Plateau–Mont Royal apartment. Police ruled his death as a suicide. He died six days before his 33rd birthday.

Source: wikipedia.org

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