Whether you are a WWE champion, a Hollywood actor or the biggest musician in the world – hair thinning can happen to anyone.
Hair transplants have long been commonplace for men of any age who were experiencing hair loss.
Approximately 6.5million men in the UK and over 40 per cent of men in the US experience pattern hair loss.
However, being in the public eye can put added stress onto male celebrities whose appearances are always on camera.
John Cena, Elton John and Matthew McConaughey are among the British and American celebrities who have proudly admitted to suffering with hair loss.
These A-lists, of all ages, have been open about their experiences to help eliminate the stigma surrounding the ‘life-changing’ procedure.
John Cena
17-time WWE world champ John Cena shared details about undergoing his second FUE (Follicular Unit Extraction) hair transplant nearly two years after the ‘life-changing’ first round
John debuted his bald head ahead of his second hair transplant last month
17-time WWE world champ John Cena shared details about undergoing his second FUE (Follicular Unit Extraction) hair transplant nearly two years after the ‘life-changing’ first round.
It all began in November 2024 when the 49-year-old retired wrestler went under the knife for ’13 and a half hours’ at the Anderson Center for Hair in Atlanta, Georgia after online trolls called him ‘bald’.
‘The objective is to get more hair, and this was the best way to do it, talking with Ken Anderson, my doctor over there. I love the guy. He’s totally changed my life,’ John told People.
‘I went back to him like, “Man, you did great. I have this one small, small, small spot. Can you do it?” He’s like, “I can. My best results are — if you’re bold enough to shave your head, I can keep the follicles.”‘
The Little Brother star officially returned to the Anderson Center on June 29 with a newly shaved head for another eight-hour FUE procedure.
‘I’m rocking this hair thing with the promise that it’s working,’ John noted. ‘I have full trust and faith in him with this process.’
The Massachusetts-born muscleman has also received PRP and exosome treatments on top of his daily regimen entailing red-light therapy, minoxidil, finasteride, vitamins as well as specialized shampoo and conditioner.
‘I hate the fact that if there wasn’t so much shame around it, I’d have gotten it done 10 years ago,’ Cena told People in 2024.
‘I thought I was alone, but seven or eight out of 10 [men] suffer from thinning or baldness.’
AJ McLean
The American singer, 48, detailed his struggle with balding in a previous interview after getting a hair transplant several years back (pictured left in 2020 and right in 2024)
Backstreet Boys singer AJ McLean was famous for his bleach blonde hair and colourful buzz cuts before losing his hair.
The American singer, 48, detailed his struggle with balding in a previous interview after getting a hair transplant several years back.
‘Losing my hair is something that I have personally struggled with for a long time,’ he told Allure in 2021
‘I ended up going to the straight Pitbull look where it’s just bald, and since then I’ve had hair surgery.
‘I did it right before I got married, which will have been 10 years ago in December. I had gotten to that place where I was shaving my head all the time because it was easier to maintain and it happened to look good with my tattoos.
‘But once I had [the surgery] done, I posted pictures on my socials. I wasn’t ashamed because I totally accept whatever anybody wants to do to make themselves feel better, to boost their self-confidence.’
Wayne Rooney
Wayne Rooney struggled with hair loss in his late teens and into his early twenties (left – pictured in 2010) and underwent the first of two hair transplants in 2011 (right – pictured in 2011, left in 2026)
Perhaps the most high-profile hair transplant of recent times was England and Manchester United legend Wayne Rooney.
The former attacker, 40, noticed hair loss from his late teens and had receded significantly by the time he was 25.
In 2011, he confirmed he had undergone a procedure as he released a statement on X: ‘Just to confirm to all my followers I have had a hair transplant. I was going bald at 25 why not. I’m delighted with the result.’
It was a success as his hair appeared to grow significantly, but he had to have another procedure in 2013 after he was slowly balding once again.
But, the second transplant left him with thicker hair once more – something that is still evident with the now DC United boss.
Jimmy Carr
Comedian Jimmy, 53, emerged from lockdown with a whole new look after undergoing a radical transformation (pictured left in 2006, right in 2022)
Comedian Jimmy, 53, emerged from lockdown with a whole new look after undergoing a radical transformation.
The TV favourite admitted he’s had ‘a bit of work done’ to look younger, including ‘a bit of Botox’ and getting a new set of teeth.
Speaking on the Just For Laughs, Jimmy said: ‘I’ve had a lot of work done. I got my teeth knocked out and put back in.
‘And then I had a hair transplant in the lockdown, which I didn’t particularly need, but what else are you going to do in lockdown?’
Discussing his decision to undergo Botox, he said: ‘I was seeing a guy, getting a bit of Botox, and I was chatting to him and he said, ”Oh I do Simon Cowell’,’ and I went, ”Yeah I think I better leave”. ”What have you done… he looks like a melted candle”.’
Robbie Williams
Robbie Williams, 52, had a hair transplant in 2013 and wanted to have another one in 2020 but was told his locks were too thin (pictured left in 2013)
Take That star Robbie Williams, 52, had a hair transplant in 2013 and wanted to have another one in 2020 but was told his locks were too thin at that point for it to work.
Speaking to The Sun, the singer said he then turned to injections to stimulate hair growth but those also failed to produce the desired results.
He said: ‘I am losing my hair. When a light shines on the top of it, it becomes like a baby’s bum.
‘I went to go and have a thatch, but the guy goes, “Bad news, your hair is so thin we cannot harvest it from there. It will do nothing”.
‘So I had these injections. They were an absolute fortune, two vials of this stuff. It cost the same price as my grandma’s house.’
Robbie said he was told his hair would grow back much thicker but seven months after the procedure, he had seen no difference.
The hitmaker said his hair transplant procedure in 2013 was a success before his hair started thinning again in recent years.
He joked that when he is performing on stage with a screen behind him, he will look at it and see a man with ‘a double chin and no hair’.
Elton John
Sir Elton John, 79, spoke about how he had to have two hair transplants after he was left with a receding hairline in the seventies (left in 1977, right 2020)
Back in 2019, Sir Elton John, 79, spoke about how he had to have two hair transplants in the Daily Mail, after he was left with a receding hairline in the late seventies due to hair dye.
He wrote: ‘Some people are blessed with the kind of face that looks good with a bald head. I am not one of those people. Without hair, I bear a disturbing resemblance to the cartoon character Shrek.
‘My hair started thinning a little in the early Seventies, but a bad dye job in New York suddenly caused the stuff to stage a mass walkout. By 1976, there was hardly anything left on top. I hated how I looked.
‘But salvation was apparently at hand: I was directed to a man called Pierre Putot in Paris, supposedly a great pioneer in the art of hair transplants.
‘Undergo a simple procedure, I was told, and I’d be leaving his clinic a changed man.
‘It didn’t quite work out like that. For one thing, it wasn’t a simple procedure at all. It went on for five hours.
‘I had it done twice, and both times it hurt like hell.’
James Nesbitt
James Nesbitt, 61, has had multiple hair transplants over the years and credits the procedure for his longevity in the industry (left in 2005, right in June last year)
James Nesbitt, 61, has had multiple hair transplants over the years and credits the procedure for his longevity in the industry.
‘In terms of the range of leading roles I’ve had since then it’s probably helped,’ he previously told Radio Times in 2017.
‘It’s not cheap!’ he admitted. ‘Probably 20 grand. I went public with it. I was very happy to be open about it.
‘I just thought, “Come on, somebody is going to say it before I say it.” It was something I struggled with. And that was probably the vanity in me.’
James says these days there’s pressure among actors to maintain their youthful looks.
‘I think it’s such a shame that young men are thinking that,’ he said. ‘There always used to be the sense that age adds character.
‘You look at Samuel Beckett when he was older, Richard Harris, but I think with younger men it seems to be a big pressure.’
Matthew McConaughey
Although he hasn’t exactly undergone a transplant, Matthew McConaughey has been using an all-natural topical ointment daily for the past 20 years in order to maintain his lengthy locks (pictured left in 2025, right in 2005)
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Although he hasn’t exactly undergone a transplant, Matthew McConaughey has been using an all-natural topical ointment daily for the past 20 years in order to maintain his lengthy locks.
The actor, 56, said that he began noticing he was losing his hair dating back in the late 1990s, recalling how he discovered a ‘baseball-sized bald spot’ on the top of his head.
‘I got a picture [from a] 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,’ the actor said.
He also says his hair loss was visible in several movies that he made at the time, including the hit 2001 romantic comedy The Wedding Planner, in which he starred alongside Jennifer Lopez.
‘You can go back and look at things like The Wedding Planner and those things. I mean, you’ll see, I was losing hair,’ he said.
In his 2020 book Greenlights, the Lone Star State native said that his hair loss became so bad, he decided to shave his head in late 2000 in an attempt to hide his thinning locks, explaining to LADBible: ‘I had a silver dollar back here. So I shaved it off because I’d read, you know, hey, get a fresh start, shave it off.’
The actor then joked: ‘I even heard the stuff like, “Do it on a full moon.”‘
After shaving his head, Matthew decided to try and stimulate the growth of his hair, revealing that he began applying the topical ointment Regenix to his scalp ‘once a day for ten minutes’.
The on-screen star insisted that he has never used any other treatment or drug to try and grow his hair, noting that he believes his luscious locks are the result of his commitment to using the topical ointment so consistently.
‘I was fully committed to it – no Propecia [a prescription drug used to treat hair loss in men], no nothing, it was just manual labor,’ said McConaughey, who won an Oscar for Best Actor in 2014 for Dallas Buyers Club.
