About
Donald Trump’s Hair referes to a series of jokes, memes, speculation and references to Donald Trump’s combed-over hairstyle.
Origin
The earliest known photographs of Donald Trump’s hair are from 1976 (example below, left). In a 2015 history of Trump’s hair, Vanity Fair wrote of his hairstyle (shown below, right), “In this photo from 1976, Trump shows off plans for the future Grand Hyatt on East 42nd Street to a city official. Considering the era and the man, this is a remarkably tasteful, organic-looking hairstyle. Nevertheless, the hard-charging young developer appears to be studying the older man’s pate-management techniques with an eye, as always, to the future.”
Spread
In 1993, the unauthroized biography of Donald Trump, Lost Tycoon: The Many Lives of Donald J. Trump was published. Using the 1990 divorce deposition from Ivana Trump, the book alleges that in 1989 Donald Trump had scalp reduction surguery, which is mostly performed on patients with balind on the crown of the head. Hairtransplantmentor.com says, “The procedure, which essentially cuts out the patient’s bald spot, follows these steps: Under anesthesia, the surgeon cuts away the balding area of the scalp. Usually a portion somewhere between the crown and the vertex transitional point is removed. The remaining skin (which is able to grow hair) is sewn back together.”
As described in Lost Tycoon, the pain caused by the surgery led to an alleged sexual assault by Donald Trump on then-wife Ivana Trump. The book states,
“Suddenly, according to Ivana, The Donald storms into the room. He is looking very angry, and he is cursing out loud. ‘Your fucking doctor has ruined me!’ he screams. The Donald flings Ivana down onto the bed. Then he pins back her arms and grabs her by the hair. The part of her head he is grabbing corresponds to the spot on his head where the scalp reduction operation has been done. The Donald starts ripping out Ivana’s hair by the handful, as if he is trying to make her feel the same kind of pain that he is feeling. Ivana starts crying and screaming. The entire bed is being covered with strands of her golden locks. But The Donald is not finished. He rips off her clothes and unzips his pants. Then he jams his penis inside her for the first time in more than sixteen months. Ivana is terrified. This is not lovemaking. This is not romantic sex. It is a violent assault. She later describes what The Donald is doing to her in no uncertain terms. According to the versions she repeats to some of her closest confidantes, ‘He raped me.’ When The Donald finally pulls out, Ivana jumps up from the bed. Then she runs upstairs to her mother’s room. She locks the door and stays there crying for the rest of the night. The next morning Ivana musters up the courage to return to the master bedroom. The Donald is there waiting for her. He leaves no doubt that he knows exactly what he did to her the night before. As she looks in horror at the ripped-out hair scattered all over the bed, he glares at her and asks with menacing casualness: ‘Does it hurt?’”
On May 11th, 2011 profile, Rolling Stone profiled Trump. During the interview, he described his hair care process. He says:
“OK, what I do is, wash it with Head and Shoulders. I don’t dry it, though. I let it dry by itself. It takes about an hour. Then I read papers and things.
…I then comb my hair. Yes, I do use a comb. …Do I comb it forward? No, I don’t comb it forward. I actually don’t have a bad hairline. When you think about it, it’s not bad. I mean, I get a lot of credit for comb-overs. But it’s not really a comb-over. It’s sort of a little bit forward and back. I’ve combed it the same way for years. Same thing, every time."
On May 24th, 2016, Gawker published an investigation entitled “Is Donald Trump’s Hair a $60,000 Weave.” The article tracks the reported information about Trump’s hair, mixed with research into hair transplants, as well as Edward Ivari, which they call “the man behind Donald Trump’s mane.” They write, “Trump, our tipster says, sought for his hair woes is a little-known, patented hair restoration treatment called a ‘microcylinder intervention.’ It’s only performed by one clinic that we know of--Ivari International--where our source once sought treatment, and where he says he learned of Trump’s apparent patronage. What’s more, Ivari’s New York location was inside Trump Tower--on a floor that’s now private and reserved for Donald Trump’s children’s offices.”
On September 15th, 2016, Trump appeared on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. Towards the end of the interview, Fallon asked Trump if he could touch his hair. Fallon proceeds to ruffle his hair (shown below, left). The moment was a source of great controversy, with many accusing Fallon of normalizing and minimizing some of Trump’s more inflammatory policies with the moment.
Several days later, on September 21st, Super Deluxe video editor Vic Berger remixed the moment. The clip (shown below, right) received more than 363,000 views in a year and a half.
Following the backlash, Fallon said, “They have a right to be mad. If I let anyone down, it hurt my feelings that they didn’t like it. I got it.”
On December 18th, 2015, Donald Trump’s hairstylist
Search Interest
External References