Seriously, something similar was an actual rumor back in the day: He was former special forces, with plenty of tattoos representing his missions and the people he'd killed.
Well, he also liked swimming, and many could attest that he didn't have any tattoos. His only "vice" was that when he was alone, he sometimes enjoyed swimming naked.
Source: I honestly don't remember. Feel free to fact check me.
I think the rumor got started because people conflated Fred and Bob Ross who was an actual Air Force DS and started painting when he got tired of screaming at people. The version I heard as a youth was the super badass SF guy with hidden tats under the shirt but you could see he had no sleeves on the show