Its rare on this blog that we get to share a bit of celebrity news, but men experiencing male-pattern baldness will doubtless take an extra interest in this story. One of the UK’s best-loved comedians and actors John Cleese recently went on Richard and Judy’s new chat show New Position to reveal that he had had a hair transplant. While discussing his recent hip replacement, the star said nonchalantly, “ As we are talking operations, since I last saw you I’ve had a hair transplant.” He went on to explain the procedure to the couple, describing how it involved taking two strips of hair from the back of his head, where the hair grew normally, which were divided into 800 separate inserts. These were then transplanted back into his head.
Asked why he had gone through this fairly drastic procedure, Cleese, with the eccentric humour he is famed for, answered: “Because I’ve got a very strange shaped skull, very pointy and I don’t like wearing wigs.” Fair enough. However, his glib response suggests at the societal stigma still attached to hair loss, particularly in Britain. It is rare to hear someone publicly describe how distressing hair loss can be, though clearly for Cleese to have opted for fairly invasive surgery, the condition must have been seriously upsetting for him. A survey in 2004 showed that while British men have the second highest incidence of baldness in Europe, only one in ten men will seek treatment for the condition. Though the survey revealed that three-quarters of men who have started losing their hair suffered from self-esteem problems, and half the British men questioned said hair loss made them feel less attractive, there is still stigma attached to seeking help for the problem.
Britain seems to have a certain ‘put up and shut up’ attitude to baldness, despite the very detrimental impact it can have on a man’s sense of self. It is refreshing to hear a man in the public eye say unashamedly he has sought treatment. Perhaps even more refreshing is when such a man expresses the distress that hair loss can cause, as when Mark Oaten, the disgraced Liberal Democrat MP, wrote in the Sunday Times, “ I became more and more obsessed by its (his hair) disappearance. For me it was a public sign that my youth had ended.”
While hair loss is not the greatest excuse for a political scandal, it is certainly true that it can have a big impact on how a man feels about himself. Speaking as a woman, whether a man has a bald patch or not doesn’t bother me at all - but that really doesn’t matter, because I know from worrying over a few extra pounds that no one noticed, feeling good about yourself depends not on how others see you but how you see yourself. Surgery should always be a last resort, but there are medications that can help. It is terribly depressing to think of all the men who let themselves be shamed into suffering in silence. So lets say bravo to the men brave enough to take action.