What do Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow and actor Michael Cera have in common? For one, they’re both currently dealing with the repercussions of going blond.
While Cera recently detailed his peroxide regrets on Late Night with Seth Meyers (“My hair is in a weird place right now,” the actor said), Burrow kicked off NFL training camp by proudly debuting a Targaryen-blond buzz cut. It’s a new—and already divisive—chapter for the star QB, who began his rookie season in 2020 with a swoopy, dirty-blond skin fade that anointed him as the team’s Midwestern Disney prince. In the intervening years, Burrow’s personal style evolution spawned a persona known as Iced-Out Joe Brrr, whose approachable steez inspired local youths to ask their barber for “the Joe Burrow fade” and earned the player a runway modeling gig at Vogue World earlier this summer.
But now there’s a new Joe Brrr in town, and his name is “Slim Shiesty.”
When the Bengals’ Instagram account shared photos on Monday of their star player sporting a fuchsia T-shirt, tropical-printed shorts, patchwork Ugg slippers, and his uncharacteristically edgy new hair—accompanied by a “Guess who’s back” caption, in reference the bleached buzz cut of Eminem’s Slim Shady days, to boot—fans seemed flabbergasted. The straight men of southern Ohio rejoiced. “Every woman within a 100 mile radius is in shambles,” a top comment reads. “My wife has returned to me,” says another.
But Darnell Bonner, the Cincinnati Bengals’ unofficial barber and the man behind both Burrow’s beloved skin fade and fresh blond buzz, is confident the fans will come around. “Some of the guys, they’re trying to make themselves a little bit more comfortable with this,” Bonner joked to GQ, “but I don’t know, as time goes on, if that’s going to be the case.” (This isn’t the first time Burrow’s gone blond, either; he and his high school teammates bleached their hair after winning their regional finals back in 2014.) After all, the history of thirst leans in Burrow’s favor.
“If you are going to take the plunge and do it, embrace it. You got to embrace a big change like that,” says Bonner, who maintains a shop just outside the city in nearby Florence, Kentucky and has been cutting Burrow’s hair since he arrived on the team. The Bengals’ favorite barber gave us the scoop on the QB’s new cut—and how you can ask for it yourself.
Darnell Bonner: Almost a month before we did the buzz cut, [Burrow] reached out to me and [said], “I want to try something new. Shoot me some ideas.” Now, mind you, he always has his own ideas with the haircuts, and this was kind of the first time he put the ball in my court. Actually I was going to send him a picture of a bleached buzz cut, but I'm like, “You know what? I know he's not talking this crazy.” So I didn't suggest it. I sent him a couple ideas. We just did a simple haircut before he flew out to France and Italy for Fashion Week. And he said, “This is for this week, but next week, I think we're going to go ahead and try this buzz cut.” So I'm like, “Are you sure? You ready to do this?” Ultimately it was his idea.
Not necessarily. In a barbershop setting, you don't deal with bleach a lot. You don't deal with a bleached buzz a lot, so I didn't really have anything [in mind]. You Google some pictures. He actually sent kind of a reference picture, and I think we went a tad bit different from what he sent me, kind of played with it, while I was over at his house doing it.
It's kind of a unique situation. Obviously I've been cutting his hair a few years now, but it's almost like I know just as much as everybody else. He's kind of set this pattern of, You don't know what's coming next. I think that's the expectation, so I feel like it wasn't a shock, I guess, that he did it.
When you come in as a rookie, I think you come in and you have to prove yourself as far as playing and everything. Obviously he's coming off having one of the best, most spectacular years as a college player, but he comes in and he absolutely changes the organization for us. There's just a lot that comes with that, on and off the field, and I think that's something that he's had to embrace, whether it comes from even some of the interviews he does, or his style. He's just kind of embraced this new role that he's kind of been placed into because of his success on the field.
I don't know. Everybody that's kind of reached out about it, I'm like, “Just give it some time. It's going to grow on you.” But I think people have actually accepted this really good. I've heard more positive than negative about it. Obviously when you're talking about the long, flowy hair that he's got, that's kind of his trademark, that's kind of his thing. When you strip it away completely, you shorten it, you bleach it, I just think it's going to take some time for people to get used to it.
Well, once the picture was posted from my Instagram, from Bengals’ Instagram, everywhere, we've actually had grandmas and moms [like], “My son.” “My grandson.” I've had people reach out like, “I want the bleached buzz.” I do anticipate a pretty big wave of clients that are going to want to try something new.
When it comes to this type of hairstyle, especially when you're adding color, you kind of want to cater to each person. Sometimes it's a two on the top, sometimes it might be a four on the top. We actually buzzed Joe a week before we bleached it—so we had the buzz cut, and then we bleached it a week later. His hair grows extremely fast. A week later, it got even just a little bit longer, and I think we were at the perfect length from there. For that particular look, between a two and a four guard, I think you'll be safe with that look.
That is going to be up to him, and I am just going to be ready when he is. Again, I know just as much as everybody else about the guy. He's going to keep me on my toes, just like he keeps everybody else on their toes… We'll see how crazy we can get.