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Topics: Celebrity, Hair, Matthew McConaughey
Jake Massey
Matthew McConaughey has explained how his hair grew back after he started to go bald in the '90s. Watch here:
At 52 years of age, the Oscar-winning actor is sporting an enviable head of hair - and it's even more impressive when you consider that he started thinning out before the turn of the millennium.
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Indeed, as he recounts in his memoir Greenlights, the hair loss got so bad that he decided to shave his head.
"How did it grow back? That's a great mystery," McConaughey told LADbible.
The Magic Mike actor said he started by buzzing it all off, as he'd heard a fresh start was the best thing for it; he was even advised that doing it on a full moon might somehow celestially summon the regrowth he craved.
However, it was ultimately a less superstitious solution and a commitment to 'manual labour' that he credits with the regeneration of his mane.
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The Austin FC co-owner explained: "I get this topical ointment and I rub it into my scalp, once a day for 10 minutes.
"I was fully committed, I was fully committed to it - no Propecia, no nothing, it was just manual labour.
"All I can tell you is it came back. I have more hair now than I had in 1999."
Some guys have all the luck/looks, I suppose.
He continued: "You can go back and look at things like The Wedding Planner and those things; I mean, you'll see, I was losing.
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"I got a picture, 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."
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Of course, when a Hollywood actor's hair appears to miraculously grow back, the assumption is that they must have forked out for a hair transplant. In fact, it later transpired that a surgeon was taking credit for the transplant - that never happened.
McConaughey recalled bumping into a renowned doctor in Beverley Hills who told him that he was mentioned every year at an international hair transplant convention. The doctor said that one surgeon had started taking credit for regenerating his hair, so he asked if he could inspect his barnet.
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"He goes, 'Can I just look at your hair? Can I just feel it and see?'" McConaughey recounted.
"I said 'Yeah man,' he goes 'You don't have transplants,' I said 'That's what I said, of course I don't.'
"He goes, 'I can't wait to bust this guy's nut next year when he raises his hand.'"
But while McConaughey may not have splashed out on a hair transplant, he's been buying that same topical ointment for more than two decades.
He said: "The same thing I was rubbing it down with I still do today.
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"I'm not gonna quit to see if like, 'Oh, do I need to do it anymore?'. I'm not taking that chance."
You can buy McConaughey's New York Times bestselling memoir Greenlights and the guided companion journal Greenlights: Your Journal, Your Journey here.