8 Male Celebrities Who Admitted to Using WIGS and Surgery to Fight Baldness

Men of all ages struggle with hair loss and celebrities are no different, even though some disguise their baldness in ways that make it so few of us ever notice anything. Although there’s a lot of self-shame that surrounds the issue, some celebrity men have been outspoken about what they do to face hair loss, including wearing hairpieces and having done hair transplants.

Sean Connery

Sean Connery was as young as 35 years old when he first began to lose his hair. “My hair went at 35. It’s not the end of the world, and it’s not that important really,” he said nonchalantly, before having a dig at those who wear ponytails. “The really stupid thing is to see someone who has a whisper of hair about 8ft long, and he’s curled it around the back of his head, and it looks like a snake trying to take off. I never understand the point of it.”

Despite his view on going bald, Connery ended up wearing a hairpiece every time he played the role of James Bond.

Ted Danson

Danson has been blunt about using different methods in order to cover a bald spot in his head, including coloring and wearing hairpieces on and off screens over the years. “My hair became a topic of conversation in the beginning of ’Cheers,’” he said and went on to describe how he’d hide a small bald spot with coloring “and comb [his] hair over it.”

Five years into the show, he moved on to a hairpiece. “I indeed did have to wear a little divot hairpiece for Sam Malone. (...) And then one of the tabloids airbrushed my entire head and said that I’m one of the people who is totally bald,” he recalled.

Tyga

American rapper Tyga’s hair transplant was accidentally exposed by fellow female rapper Nicki Minaj on X, formerly known as Twitter. During a rant, Minaj mentioned how her ex-boyfriend had had a hair transplant and that Tyga had gone to the same doctor to treat his baldness.

Tyga then went on to gracefully confirm it with a tweet of his own, where he shared the clinic’s info and suggested people should refer him if they went.

Joel McHale

During a podcast interview with fellow actor Justin Long, Joel McHale, better known for his role in the hit TV show Community, admitted that he had had not one but three hair transplants in order to achieve his look.

“I’d be totally bald. We’re not all born with gorgeous thick hair like you,” he said jokingly to Long before recalling when his hair loss journey started. “18, 19 [years old]. When I started The Soup, I look at some of the promo photos, and I’m like, ’Oh yeah.’ Maybe I’ve gone overboard and this really shows my midlife crisis, but my theory is that I’m never going to die, and it’s a good theory,” he added.

Jason Alexander

Seinfeld-star and comedian Jason Alexander has admitted to wearing a toupee in certain occasions, all whilst wearing one during his 2014 appearance on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. When questioned about his “reappearing” hair, the actor was frank.

“I do standup comedy, a show called ’Jason Alexander — An Evening With Jason Alexander and His Hair’. And so the hair has billing and an agent, and so I had to wear it on your show,” Alexander joked. He then went on to call it “fantastic” and reveal that “it cost a fortune.”

Robbie Williams

In 2013, Robbie Williams revealed he fell victim to the peer pressure in Los Angeles to get cosmetic surgery, including a hair transplant. According to the British singer, he didn’t actually need it. “I’ve lived in LA for a long time, and they say, ’If you sit in a barber’s shop for long enough you will get a hair cut.’ Well, if you live in Los Angeles for long enough you’re going to get some surgery,” he said during one of his appearances on The Graham Norton Show.

“I’ve had a thatch done and I didn’t even need it. That’s the weirdest thing. I had three months off and got bored,” he admitted.

Elton John

Elton John has tried hair transplants and wigs to get the hairstyle he feels comfortable with, however only the latter worked out for him. In his autobiography the iconic singer revealed that by 1976, he had gone bald almost entirely, and he decided to take on advice to do a hair transplant.

Besides grueling, the procedure was ineffective. “Undergo a simple procedure, I was told, and I’d be leaving his clinic a changed man,” he shared. “It didn’t quite work out like that.”

After the unsuccessful attempts, Elton started wearing a wig, something he continues to do until this day.

Cheyenne Jackson

In a now-deleted Instagram post, the American Horror Story-star opened up about his “horrible secret.” Following a collage of two images, one of which that showed a big scared across the back of his head, was a caption that described his battle with hair loss since he was 22 years old.

“I’ve been DREADING this day for 17 years. The day when my horrible secret would be revealed,” he wrote. “No, this gnarly scar across my head isn’t from life-saving brain surgery, nor did I narrowly survive a shark attack. It’s worse. (At least in Hollywood...) I had hair transplant surgery. 5 of them, to be exact over 14 years.”

He then went on to explain he got the surgeries because he “felt less attractive” and less like himself as his baldness progressed, and he shared his experience because he wanted to inspire others to “let go” of their secrets.

Bonus: Matthew Mcconaughey

This veteran actor never actually used a wig or had a hair transplant done, but many thought he did, so Mcconaughey decided to clear up the rumors on how he got his gorgeous locks after almost going bald in the ’90s.

“You can go back and look at things like The Wedding Planner and those things; I mean, you’ll see, I was losing,” the star recalled in an interview. “I got a picture: Turn of the millennium party in 2000 in Jamaica, I was looking down laughing, and there was a baseball-sized bald spot on the top of my head.”

Mcconaughey then went on to explain how he overcame the issue, after having to shave all his hair in order to start the journey of getting his hair back. “I get this topical ointment and I rub it into my scalp, once a day for 10 minutes. (...) I was fully committed to it — no Propecia, no nothing, it was just manual labor,” he said. “All I can tell you is it came back. I have more hair now than I had in 1999.”

And he continues to use the same ointment to this day.

A few male celebrities play with their appearance often, and they experiment with both short and long hairstyles. Henry Cavill and Brendan Fraser feature in the list of male celebrities who constantly grow and cut their hair to always rock new looks.