28 female celebrities who have shaved their heads

Pugh debuted her new 'do on the Met Gala red carpet in 2023, but she had actually shaved her head weeks prior and had been wearing wigs to throw people off the scent.

"I thought, what is a better way than to release it at The Met with Pierpaolo [Piccioli]," she said on the red carpet, referring to Valentino's creative director. "I've been keeping it under wraps for about three weeks now."

She did it for her role in the upcoming film "We Live in Time," in which she co-stars with Andrew Garfield. The film is already setting Twitter ablaze.

In fact, Portman actually shaved her head on set while filming.

"It was a one-shot deal, and that was the most stressful thing about the experience," Portman told USA Today in 2006.

The film's director, James McTeigue, added, "She knew the day was coming. I put three cameras on her, made sure the clippers weren't stuck, and then we shaved her head. She loved it and kept rubbing her head."

"I just finished working on a film called 'Where Hands Touch,'" Stenberg wrote in a since-deleted Instagram post, Teen Vogue reported in 2017. "The story is about the experience of biracial children growing up in Nazi Germany. I shaved my head for the role. Feels really good."

Stenberg also joked about feeling "aerodynamic" and reaching "ultimate speed."

The 2018 movie, which tells the story of a romance between a member of the Nazi Youth and a biracial teenager, was accused by some critics of romanticizing Nazis. But its writer and director, Amma Asante, and Stenberg defended the film, saying they wanted to spotlight children of color who lived under Nazi rule, Variety reported.

Gillan dramatically revealed her shaved head during a Comic Con appearance in 2014. She'd been walking around the convention with a wig just to surprise all the fans at the "Guardians" panel by whipping it off on stage.

You can watch the "Domino" singer debut the look in this clip from Red Nose Day in 2013.

"I want to keep it like this for a bit, yes. I look like this on my album cover. I wanted to make a statement. I feel like there's no point in shaving your head for charity if you're then going to just grow it back the next day," she told Glamour at the time.

Overall, King has shaved her head three times for roles — and she'd do it again.

"I would absolutely do it again," she told Allure in 2022. "I think every woman should [shave their head] at least once in their life. I've never felt more free or more in tune with my beauty. I couldn't hide behind my hair."

"A lot of people made fun of me when I had my head shaved. A lot of people said really mean things. But when I had short hair, I actually felt more confident; I felt very powerful," she continued.

Back in 2017, Palmer posted a selfie of her newly shaved head on Twitter with the caption "Haters will say it's photoshopped," with a couple of emojis, Essence reported.

Speaking to Refinery 29 that same year, she said, "I cut my hair for a couple of reasons. The first being, I wanted to start over. My texture has changed quite a bit over the years from all the things I've done to it. I really want to be able to let my hair rest and become its own thing. I also really wanted to be bald!"

Almost immediately after shaving it, she decided to dye her hair purple. "I'm really excited to see how I can assist in this change with my wardrobe," she said.

In 2015, Theron shaved her head for practical reasons while playing Furiosa in the dystopian thriller "Mad Max: Fury Road." The film shot in the desert for months and long hair would have simply been too difficult to manage.

"After that, I was 20 minutes early to everything in my life," she told People in 2015. "It was unbelievable, like how much time we spend on our hair. And then also, I think I emptied two garbage bags full of hair products and brushes. There's something very freeing in that, for sure, definitely."

She elaborated during a September 2009 appearance on "The Oprah Winfrey Show," The Boombox reported.

"Realistically I was spending about $40,000 to $50,000 [on my hair]," she said, adding: "This phase in my life, I want to spend the time, the energy, and the money on something else and not in the hair salon."

"When it's a part like that, especially when it's about cancer," she told Elle in 2017, "I needed to feel what it would be like to have no hair. The way you look, I think, it's so important to feel beautiful, no matter if you have hair. It doesn't matter at all."

She also called the decision "one of the most liberating things I've ever done. I really like it a lot. It's been really amazing."

Moore shaved her head to play an Army recruit in "GI Jane," and it's arguably one of the reasons she's such a huge star. But 25 years later, Moore didn't think she'd ever shave her head again.

"I think now that I'm older, I also know, I don't have anything to prove. So if they really need my hair different, they can give me a wig," she told People in 2022.

Pinkett Smith revealed her alopecia diagnosis in 2018 during an episode of "Red Table Talk." Alopecia is an autoimmune condition which causes the immune system to attack hair follicles.

"It was terrifying when it first started. You know, I was in the shower one day, and then just handfuls of hair just in my hands. I was like, 'Oh my God, am I going bald?'" Pinkett Smith said.

By 2021, Pinkett Smith had shaved her head, in part due to her daughter Willow.

"Willow made me do it because it was time to let go BUT … my 50's are bout to be Divinely lit with this shed," she wrote on Instagram.

Halsey is a hair chameleon. In 2020, she once again shaved her hair off and wrote simply on Twitter: "I love be bald."

She went on to add, "I was growing it out for so long and I told myself I wouldn't shave it till I saw what it was like healthy and long and then I saw it healthy and long and said 'mm this is nice but I miss bald.' and then so I did it!"

"You guys have seen me wear my natural hair out. I had, like, two eras where my hair would be out. I would straighten it ... There was a moment where it was natural, and I don't even wear it natural 'cause I don't feel like it," she said during an Instagram Live in 2022, People reported.

She called having her natural hair "a nightmare" and also said she didn't even like having hair.

"I'm glad my head is a good shape. I was scared it was going to give peanut head ... I was like, 'What [does] my head look like without hair?'" she added.

Stewart buzzed her head in 2017.

"I'm doing a movie in a couple of weeks called 'Underwater' and I play a mechanical engineer who is working on an oil rig on the bottom of the ocean floor, so for me it's practical," she said on the "Today" show.

"I've wanted to do this for a long time for novelty's sake, just because at some point in your life you want to be able to do that," she said. "It feels amazing — I just want to headbang all day!"

In 2018, Brown called shaving her head "empowering" on Instagram.

"The day I shaved my head was the most empowering moment of my whole life. The last strand of hair cut off was the moment my whole face was on show and I couldn't hide behind my hair like I used to. The only image I had in my head about what I could possibly look like is Charlize Theron in ['Mad Max']," she wrote, according to W Magazine.

"I think that I'd definitely seen Sinead O'Connor's 'Nothing Compares 2 U' video," Rose said in an interview for Refinery29 in 2016. "I was inspired by her. And I grew up in Philly ... Eve was really popular, and my friends said, 'Please don't do it, Amber, you're gonna look crazy.' And, of course, me being me, I rebelled against everyone and went straight down the middle at a barber shop. Fourteen years later, I still have it."

Weaver told The Chicago Tribune in 1992 that shaving her head for the third "Alien" film wasn't her idea, but director David Fincher's.

She went into more detail on a December 2022 episode of the podcast "Smartless."

"We finished a meeting with the suits at Fox and all got up and someone, probably the head of Fox, said, 'So David, how do you see Ripley?' And we were on our way out the door and he said to me, 'How do you feel about bald?' And I said, 'Sounds great to me,'" she said.

"I thought it was kind of going to be no muss-no fuss, but I have to shave it every day," Nixon said in 2012, Insider reported. "I was always kind of curious to see what it would be like," added Nixon. "I like it, but I don't think I'm gonna keep it forever."

"Shaving off my hair is so liberating. I had to do it once for a film role, but I've done it periodically too. At school it was probably to rebel, but I cut my hair short a few years ago and I'm thinking about doing it again," Blanchett told Marie Claire in 2013, Yahoo reported.

In April 2023, Nyong'o posted a video of herself cutting off her sisterlocks on Instagram. The next month, she shared a photo of herself taking it a step further by completely shaving her head.

"Happy without hair," she wrote, adding that her application to the Dora Milaje, the all-female security team in "Black Panther," had been submitted.

"Everybody else was concerned about how intense it would be for me. I was given a bottle of vodka beforehand but I'd shaved my head five times so it feels quite wonderful," she said during a 2015 appearance on the British TV show "Lorraine," Metro reported. "I would have done anything for this movie I loved it so much."

In 2017, O'Connor shared the heartbreaking reason behind her buzz cut during an episode of "Dr. Phil."

She said that her mother would introduce O'Connor and her sister as the pretty daughter and the ugly daughter, respectively, because of their different hair.

"That's why I cut my hair off. I didn't want to be pretty," she said. "It was dangerous to be pretty because I was getting raped and molested everywhere I went."

She added, "I was asked one day would I grow my hair long and wear short skirts because they wanted to sell me on my sexuality. I didn't want to be sold on that. If I was going to be successful, I wanted it to be because I was a good musician."

Lilly has actually shaved her head multiple times, first in 2019 and again in 2023.

"About four years ago I shaved my head, just for fun," she told Yahoo Entertainment in 2023. That led to her shorter pixie cut in "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania."

She debuted her newest bleached buzz cut on the red carpet for "Quantumania" just a few days later.

"I like to see a glare on my scalp, a bounce of light," she told Glamour in 2022. She added, "Shaving my head is maybe the most radical thing I've done in the name of beauty."

"As a Black woman there were a lot of layers to my relationship with my hair and skin growing up; it was definitely a learning curve," she continued.

She remembered thinking, "'Oh! What is the shape of my head going to look like?'" during an episode of "Jimmy Kimmel" in 2017. "I really started to panic," she said.

By 2018, she was already nostalgic for the look.

"The shaved head was awesome," she told Harper's Bazaar. "I didn't think I'd love it so much. The connection to it was powerful and I wasn't prepared for that. It's so liberating."

Gurira wasn't sure about her shaved look at first, but soon, she was proud of her decision.

"Like I was the first one to get my head shaved and in theory it sounded amazing. Then the day came and we're doing it today and I was like, 'Today?' Then it happened," she said in 2018, according to HelloGiggles.

"Then you go into the restroom to wash your hands, and you look up and you're like, 'What the?' So that took a few days, and then all the girls start coming in. We'd all been bald'ed, one by one," she continued. "You don't have to have hair to be beautiful."

The "American Idol" alum shaved her head in 2012 in solidarity with her childhood friend Summer Holt Miller, who was diagnosed with breast cancer.