Another day, another Taylor Swift ex-boyfriend drama. Right now, the internet is in meltdown over rumours that Harry Styles has shaved his head because of Taylor.
Allow us to explain. This week, a fan sent a blurry picture to the celebrity gossip account Deux Moi which claims to show Harry at a U2 concert in Las Vegas. In the picture, Harry appears to be sporting a buzzcut with a much more closely cropped back and sides that normal. Shared on the Instagram account's stories, the person wrote ‘Harry Styles appeared to be missing something at the U2 concert at Sphere in Las Vegas this past Wednesday...’
Admittedly the picture is very blurry and it’s hard to tell for sure whether it shows Harry, or a pretty good doppelgänger. There's also every chance that the picture could have been fabricated by a fan. But if it is Harry in the photo, what is certain is that those signature, silky locks (which have even been immortalised by none other than David Hockney) are nowhere to be seen.
Of course, Harry's hair has already gone through a few evolutions. Last year, he debuted a moustache which sent fans into meltdown, while in 2016 he replaced his long locks with a more cropped style. But what's really got everyone talking is the suspicious timing of the haircut. Just last month, Taylor released a rerecorded version of her album 1989, and listeners have noticed that in Now That We Don't Talk she sings:
‘You grew your hair long / You got new icons / And from the outside / It looks like you’re tryin’ lives on / I miss the old ways / You didn’t have to change / But I guess I don’t have a say / Now that we don’t talk.’
Given Taylor’s history of penning lyrics about her past relationships, it didn’t take fans long to start speculating that Harry might have cut his hair because of Taylor. The song is widely believed to be about her relationship with Harry, who she dated for three months between 2012 and 2013. So the fact Harry cut his hair so soon after the song was re-released feels suspect, to say the least.
Naturally, the internet is going crazy with conspiracy theories about Harry’s new locks. Right now, Harry Styles haircut is a breakout search term on Google, and he started trending on X after fans shared their theories about his hair. One user accompanied a meme of a man with a buzzcut waving with the caption ‘harry styles after hearing “you grew your hair long”’
Another uploaded the blurred picture to her X account and wrote ‘Taylor Swift wrote “you grew your hair long, i miss the old days, you didn’t had to change” and Harry Styles booked a hair appointment.’ A third wrote 'Taylor said “you grew your hair long… I miss the old ways” and Harry brought out the clippers.'
Others simply mourned the potential loss of Harry’s hair, which, for many fans, is a defining feature of his heartthrob status. ‘i think the world fell apart after harry styles cut off his long hair,’ one user wrote on X. Another agreed, writing ‘how will he be harry styles WITH NO HAIR TO STYLE.’ However, some fans maintained their faith in the singer’s new style. One user wrote on X ‘There are very few people in this world that I trust so completely to know what they're doing with their fashion/hair etc. And one of them is Harry Styles. He always, always serves. So often people would freak out about his style and then later realise he was actually genius.’
But maybe this heartthrob status - or rather, a rejection of it - is the reason behind Harry's new do. Buzzcuts have long been a rebellious act in the celebrity world. David Beckham famously shaved off his signature blond curtains hair style to ‘rebel’ against Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson, while in 2017 Sinead O’Connor explained she cut her hair off because she ‘didn’t want to be pretty.’ One X user even went as far as to speculate that Harry's new haircut was inspired by the noughties nostalgia around the Beckham documentary, writing 'If Harry styles got a buzz cut it’s bc he watched the Beckham Netflix doc.' Could the new hair be a sign that Harry is attempting to move towards a more ‘serious’ celebrity status than his boyband days? We’ll have to watch this space.
This isn't the first time that fans have speculated over the loss of Harry's locks. Last year, a blind item on Deux Moi claimed an A-list male pop star and occasional actor was secretly balding. After noticing that Harry fits the description, some TikTokers started to share detailed videos inspecting Harry's hairline. Harry addressed these rumours in an interview with Rolling Stone, where he said 'What is it with baldness? … It skips a generation or something, right? If your grandad’s bald then you’ll be bald? Well, my granddad wasn’t bald, so fingers crossed.' And we should add that even if Harry is going bald, that is totally ok too.
Whatever the (hairy) truth is, we're sure Taylor's next song will have a lot to say about the matter...