Celebrities Who Don't Want You To Know They're Going Bald

Most men go bald. And they go bald because they're men. Androgenetic alopecia, which is more commonly known as male pattern baldness, "accounts for more than 95 [percent]" of male hair loss, according to the American Hair Loss Association. Two-thirds of guys in the U.S. will see noticeable hair loss by age 35, as testosterone converts to a hair-thinning hormone called DHT. But it gets worse: a full 85 percent of men will have significant thinning by age 50. And that's a tough coincidence for macho movie stars, because, as one study found, male actors don't reach their peak earning powers until age 51. 

Basically, unless you can own hair loss like a boss — see Bruce Willis or Jason Statham for details — something has to do be done. But unfortunately, there's no quick fix. While a cure for manly hair loss would make sales of Viagra look truly flaccid by comparison, science can't quite crack this nut. That leaves otherwise perfectly groomed studs, in spite of their wealth, fame, and connections, with the same mediocre options as everybody else. These are celebrities who don't want us to know they're going bald.

British's famously mop-topped Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, attracts controversy and eschews a comb. As such, many have wondered why such a powerful, rich man would sport his infamously shabby, "silly style" of hair, as The New York Times dubbed it in 2019. But could the PM be hiding something under that hair hat? Well, according to some reports, the shaggy style is supposedly a ploy to conceal his hair loss. 

Parliamentary gossip blogger Guido Fawkes summed up the speculation with this claim: "The mop-topped Mayor of London is going bald ... a growing bald patch at the back and a deliberate effort to comb his locks forward. It was all a bit, Donald Trump." Meanwhile, Marie Claire described various Johnson hair eras as "the ruffle," "the wind tunnel," and "the peroxide." But while this outlet oddly asserted, "Boris is blessed with a thick mop ... male-pattern baldness clearly isn't an issue," other publications have taken to metaphors, with one even describing his hairline as "[resigning] from his head." 

Still, other experts allege Johnson is in a no-win hair-loss situation. "Johnson has very fine hair," Beverly Hills stylist Guy Romeo mused to Los Angeles Magazine in 2019, as he compared photos of the prime minister. "And from what I've read, he does this look as a vanity. If Johnson wore his hair neat, it would look even thinner."

Jamie Foxx is enjoying life in his 50's, as he told Jerry Seinfeld in his exuberant episode of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. But around 2007, at nearly age 40, some fans noticed Foxx's hairline made a comeback. The before-and-after photos are somewhat dramatic. The comedian himself has never commented, but an expert in the field, YouTuber Hairliciously, believes this result was no doubt surgical. "Sometime between 2006 and 2007, Jamie Foxx underwent a hair transplant via FUT to increase density in the mid-scalp," the hair sleuth speculated, "but I don't think that it was really that successful."

An FUT transplant is performed by removing a strip of the patient's scalp from the back of the head from a fuller "donor area" that isn't as affected by male pattern hair losses. This strip is then turned into grafts and added to the hairline. Observers pointed to Foxx's tribal tattoo, which the star added to the back of his dome for his 40th birthday, as it apparently perfectly aligns with the shape and placement of scarring caused by an FUT procedure. However, by 2012, Foxx's high hairline could allegedly still be seen in movies like Django Unchained. Hairliciously believes the actor then underwent further procedures to achieve better results by 2019. Foxx may have even resorted to a hairline tattoo, GQ Australia implied ... but per usual, no one knows for sure.

Donald Trump's hair has vexed observers all the way back to his days as a real-estate scion insisting on having cameos in movies like Home Alone 2. Fast forward to 2017, and the POTUS was having a harder time keeping his hair secrets to himself. 

Longtime Trump physician, Dr. Harold N. Bornstein, revealed that the president uses a hair growth drug called Finasteride to help maintain his famous coif. "He has all his hair," the doc, with his own shoulder-length style, boasted to The New York Times. Often branded as Propecia, it prevents testosterone from converting into the hated hair-destroying hormone DHT. It's all very complicated, but the drug apparently works. 

Jimmy Fallon put Trump's treatment to the test in 2016, when he aggressively tousled the then-candidate's mane on live TV, and it stayed remarkably intact. That said, baldness is still an incurable scourge, as a strong gust of wind revealed in a 2018 video posted by The Stranger. It further fueled long-standing rumors that Trump's hair is the product of an elaborate and quite literal cover-up. According to Michael Wolf's lurid White House exposé, Fire and Fury, Trump allegedly starts every day with "an absolutely clean pate — a contained island after scalp-reduction ­surgery — surrounded by a furry circle of hair around the sides and front, from which all ends are drawn up to meet in the center and then swept back and secured by a stiffening spray."

When a man starts losing his hair early in life, it doesn't feel like a joke. But that's what happened to Punk'd prankster Ashton Kutcher, who admitted his floppy hair started to fall out at age 25. The problem: he was still playing teenager Micheal Kelso on That 70's Show. "I went and met the ... hair guy doctor," Kutcher told Conan O'Brien in 2018. "... And he put me on this medication called Avodart." Avodart is the brand name for an FDA-approved drug called Dutasteride, which is used off-label to treat male pattern baldness and has been shown in clinical trials to potentially be more effective than the gold-standard Finasteride. In other words, Kutcher was in good hands, and his hair loss was halted. 

However, in 2014, Kutcher and wife Mila Kunis were expecting their first child, and oral hair loss drugs can be hazardous to a male fetus, even if merely handled by a pregnant woman. Scary stuff. But Kutcher, being the good daddy he is, stopped the treatment immediately, going on to tell O'Brien, "And now I'm experiencing the hair loss." He went on to say he'll never resort to a hairpiece, and would rather go bald gracefully: "I'm a baseball cap guy, so I think it's okay ... I'll just let it go." 

But maybe that's easy to say when you still look like this. Of course, the actual exposure of scalp would end up convincing many men to exclaim, "Dude, where's my hairpiece?!"

James Franco is rarely mentioned on mainstream listicles about celebrities with hair loss. But maybe that's because, at least in the world of online hair loss speculation forums, Reddit threads allege, "James Franco got a killer hair transplant." The before-and-after photos submitted are fascinating: Franco has always been adventurous with his hair style, but by 2015, when the actor was in his late 30s, some observers claimed photos proved his hairline had begun to wane. Compared to his luscious locks in 2018, online sleuths believe something was done. 

"I'm pretty confident that James Franco ended up with a hair transplant and not some type of hairpiece," hair restoration expert Hairliciously claimed. He said Franco's minimal hair loss — limited to the temples and frontal hairline and his good genes, as evidenced by his brothers and father — made him an ideal candidate, contributing to what the YouTuber described as "one of the best hair transplant results ever."

The Office actor Steve Carell's televised hair transformation is so legendary it's become the stuff of countless memes. Interestingly, the high hairline look was an intentional part of creating the original version of his iconic character, Michael Scott — at least in season one. Audiences didn't initially get on board with the balding boss, though, and the show was nearly canceled in 2005. However, when Carell came back in better shape for Season 2 following the success of The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Michael Scott got an image makeover more in line with the likable direction NBC took its "world's best boss."

This also allegedly gave the burgeoning box office star an opportunity to paper over his hair loss, and experts claim he had medical assistance. "[Carell] has had hair transplantation. Full-sized hairs from the back and sides were surgically transplanted (via tiny skin grafts) to the top areas of the head where the follicles (and hair) were no longer present," Dr. Bernard H. Cohen of Miami's Hair Restoration & Dermatology clinic claimed. To achieve a result this good, experts advised it's often necessary to use a combination of treatments, with Dr. Cohen alleging, "[Carell] is undoubtedly using daily Minoxidil, Finasteride, or laser as well." Well, that's what he said.