1 day Ago By Julia Hobbs
Picture us – British Vogue ’s editorial team – in the office the morning after the latest episode of HBO’s The White Lotus has aired. The conversation flips from the incest plotline (don’t watch this show with a blood relative), to Leslie Bibb’s c*nty bob . Then, as though listening to someone else, I hear six words escape my mouth: “I’m hot for Walton Goggins’s hairline.
” There was a collective gasp (with a base note of “eww”) befitting an open plan office. Then one (“anon pls”) senior staffer piped up: “Same.” Fifty-three-year-old Walton Goggins – who plays Rick in Season 3 of TWL – is proof that, in 2025, it pays to be ballsy about going bald.
Worn swept back, his flyaway jaw-length hair accentuates his handsome, expansive forehead. The show also features more than a few lingering shots of his bare crown – which is conspicuous precisely because you don’t see all that many bald patches on our screens. So, where have all the natural hairlines gone in Hollywood? I decided to consult a close friend who is chronically well-informed on celeb news and always (or, so I thought) up for talking about his hairline – and almost annihilated our friendship.
“This is a question related to a piece I’m working on,” I told Vogue contributing editor Raven Smith over voice note. “Whatever you say may be taken in evidence and used as a quote.” Follicularly speaking, I needed to get the lay of the land.
“In the hierarchy of male hair loss, is a receding hairline worse, better or the same as a balding crown?” His reply: “Is my hair receding?” “No!!!!” I typed as fast as my Carpal tunnel syndrome would allow. (For the record: no.) A full 24 hours went by before he replied.
“Never mention a man’s hairline. That’s probably the golden rule,” Smith said in a low growl. “It’s like your crop failing as a farmer.
” “The only time to ask a man about his hairline is if he’s coming back from Turkey on a plane wearing a hat,” he added in a second VN. My colleague nodded in agreement (again: open plan office). “I’d estimate 30 per cent of the passengers flying Pegasus Airlines from Istanbul to Stansted are sporting head bandages,” they (also “anon please”) said.
How big is the hair transplant industry? Well, a study conducted by Roots Analysis (yes, I know) reports that the global hair transplant market size is “valued at $8.01 billion in 2024 and is estimated to reach $15.65 billion by 2035”.
Blame Hollywood. Scan the arrivals on the red carpet at this year’s Vanity Fair Oscars Party and you’ll see that, as far as A-list quinquagenarians go, Goggins is something of a lone (magnetically attractive) wolf for side-stepping the trend. Why? He’s fine just as he is, thank you.
And therein, in my view, lies much of the charm: being comfortable in your own skin – with all of its attendant quirks – is hot. (See his undeniably gorgeous on-screen girlfriend Chelsea’s impeccable overbite for another example.) “What has brought me an extraordinary amount of peace in my life is when I finally fell in love with myself,” Goggins told fellow actor Danny McBride in Interview magazine’s March issue.
“Genuinely, I think that is the path of all spirituality,” he added, offering a lesson to us all. “You can say it’s about finding god, but when you find your god you’re still going to have to face yourself.” Hair-loss, wrinkles and all.
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