The US president’s dramatically darker locks have prompted jokes and memes online
US President Donald Trump has debuted a dramatically darker hairdo, causing bewilderment among social media users and sparking a wave of jokes and memes.
Photos of Trump stepping off Air Force One in Morristown, New Jersey, on Friday en route to his golf club in nearby Bedminster show his signature golden-blond locks transformed into an almost brunette hue.
“What in the world is going on with Trump’s hair?” journalist Aaron Rupar asked on X after images of the apparent transformation began circulating online.
“The hair???? If I hadn’t pulled the photos from Getty Images myself, I wouldn’t have believed it,” journalist Yashar Ali wrote.
Journalist Molly Jong-Fast announced that “Trump is now a brunette!” while lawyer and longtime Trump critic George Conway suggested that “something needs to be done about his hair under the Twenty-Fifth Amendment,” referring to the constitutional mechanism for removing a president deemed unable to perform his duties.
Author Anne Lamott offered a more flattering assessment, comparing the president’s new appearance to that of a former James Bond star.
“I love it. So youthful. Very Pierce Brosnan,” she wrote.
The online frenzy came just days after Trump once again insisted that he does not wear a wig. Speaking at a White House Rose Garden dinner on Wednesday, he recalled a particularly windy 2024 campaign rally in Ohio.
“For years, I had to suffer with people saying, ‘He wears a wig.’ I don’t wear a wig,” Trump said. “That night, they found out I did not wear a wig because if you did, it was not going to be on your head very long.”
Trump’s distinctive hairstyle has inspired fascination, speculation, and countless memes for decades. During his 2016 presidential campaign, he allowed late-night host Jimmy Fallon to ruffle it on television to demonstrate that it was real. Footage of Trump boarding Air Force One in 2018 went viral after gusts lifted his carefully arranged hair and exposed a bald patch at the back of his head.
“I try like hell to hide that bald spot, folks. I work hard at it,” Trump joked at the Conservative Political Action Conference later that month. “We’re hanging in there, folks – together we are hanging in.”
Several US media outlets approached the White House for comment. The president appeared to conceal his new hairdo beneath a red cap while playing golf on Saturday.
