We Talked to Joe Burrow’s Barber About That Wild Ice-Blond Buzz Cut

What do Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow and actor Michael Cera have in frequent? For one, they’re each at present coping with the repercussions of going blond.

Whereas Cera just lately detailed his peroxide regrets on Late Night time with Seth Meyers (“My hair is in a bizarre place proper now,” the actor mentioned), Burrow kicked off NFL coaching camp by proudly debuting a Targaryen-blond buzz minimize. It’s a brand new—and already divisive—chapter for the star QB, who started his rookie season in 2020 with a swoopy, dirty-blond pores and skin fade that anointed him because the group’s Midwestern Disney prince. Within the intervening years, Burrow’s private fashion evolution spawned a persona generally known as Iced-Out Joe Brrr, whose approachable steez impressed native youths to ask their barber for “the Joe Burrow fade” and earned the participant a runway modeling gig at Vogue World earlier this summer time.

However now there’s a brand new Joe Brrr on the town, and his identify is “Slim Shiesty.”

When the Bengals’ Instagram account shared pictures on Monday of their star participant sporting a fuchsia T-shirt, tropical-printed shorts, patchwork Ugg slippers, and his uncharacteristically edgy new hair—accompanied by a “Guess who’s again” caption, in reference the bleached buzz minimize of Eminem’s Slim Shady days, as well—followers appeared flabbergasted. The straight males of southern Ohio rejoiced. “Each girl inside a 100 mile radius is in shambles,” a prime remark reads. “My spouse has returned to me,” says one other.

However Darnell Bonner, the Cincinnati Bengals’ unofficial barber and the person behind each Burrow’s beloved pores and skin fade and recent blond buzz, is assured the followers will come round. “Among the guys, they’re making an attempt to make themselves somewhat bit extra snug with this,” Bonner joked to GQ, “however I don’t know, as time goes on, if that’s going to be the case.” (This isn’t the primary time Burrow’s gone blond, both; he and his highschool teammates bleached their hair after successful their regional finals again in 2014.) In spite of everything, the historical past of thirst leans in Burrow’s favor.

“If you’re going to make the leap and do it, embrace it. You bought to embrace a giant change like that,” says Bonner, who maintains a store simply outdoors town in close by Florence, Kentucky and has been reducing Burrow’s hair since he arrived on the group. The Bengals’ favourite barber gave us the inside track on the QB’s new minimize—and how one can ask for it your self.

GQ: So, whose concept was the blond buzz minimize?

Darnell Bonner: Nearly a month earlier than we did the thrill minimize, [Burrow] reached out to me and [said], “I wish to attempt one thing new. Shoot me some concepts.” Now, thoughts you, he all the time has his personal concepts with the haircuts, and this was type of the primary time he put the ball in my court docket. Really I used to be going to ship him an image of a bleached buzz minimize, however I am like, “You understand what? I do know he is not speaking this loopy.” So I did not recommend it. I despatched him a pair concepts. We simply did a easy haircut earlier than he flew out to France and Italy for Vogue Week. And he mentioned, “That is for this week, however subsequent week, I feel we’ll go forward and do that buzz minimize.” So I am like, “Are you certain? You prepared to do that?” Finally it was his concept.