A Look At Politicians’ Hair Scandals Throughout The Years

FILE - In this July 7, 2012, file photo, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, left, speaks during a news conference with then-President of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai, at the Presidential Palace in Kabul. Cli... FILE - In this July 7, 2012, file photo, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, left, speaks during a news conference with then-President of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai, at the Presidential Palace in Kabul. Clinton escaped the Senate after her 2008 presidential run through an unlikely opportunity. President Barack Obama, her former rival, asked her to join his administration as secretary of state. Clinton confidantes view her four years at the helm of the State Department as her golden era. A telltale sign that Clinton was in her comfort zone: she was willing to throw her famously scrutinized hair up in a ponytail in front of the cameras. (AP Photo/Brendan Smialowski, Pool, File) MORE LESS
Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

PARIS (AP) — French President Francois Hollande’s $11,000-a-month barber bills have ignited a national scandal, undermining his carefully constructed image as a regular guy. But hair challenges have bedeviled plenty of other politicians. Here’s a look at some hair-raising moments:

EDWARDS: HAIR CUTS FROM $1,250 to $12.95

In 2007, U.S. Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, who pledged to alleviate poverty, raised a brow or two after his campaign disclosed that he’d received two $400 haircuts.

The pricy hairdresser Joseph Torrenueva said he upped the regular price of $150 because of travel expenses involved in going to meet the silken-haired Edwards on the campaign trail. Torrenueva added that one haircut cost $1,250 as he had to fly to Atlanta and miss two days of work.

The exorbitant haircuts didn’t help Edwards, with then-Senator Barack Obama winning the Democratic nomination.

In 2012, Edwards was spotted at the humble, no-appointment chain SuperCuts — where a men’s snip sets you back a populist-friendly $12.95.

___

CLINTON’S SCRUNCHIE WOES

Hillary Clinton has often complained — and laughed — about the media’s long obsession with her hairdos.

She joked in 2014 that she liked the idea of calling “Hard Choices,” her memoir about being secretary of state, “The Scrunchie Chronicles” instead, since her hairstyles were the subject of constant debate.

Clinton was widely criticized for wearing her hair up in a no-hassle ponytail with the aid of a scrunchie as she zig-zagged to 112 countries as President Barack Obama’s top diplomat.

The presumptive Democratic nominee was also criticized in April for a haircut at New York’s exclusive John Barrett Salon. Though it’s unclear what Clinton paid, a normal cut-and-blow dry there costs around $600.

Detractors say that sky-high price tag was at odds with her campaign pledge to help working Americans.

__

TRUMP’S GRAVITY DEFYING COMB-OVER

Clinton has often quipped that at long last there’s someone on the political scene whose hair is an equally big talking point as hers. Of course, she’s referring to Donald Trump.

The tycoon and presumptive Republican nominee has a famous, gravity-defying comb-over, and speculation has been rife that he wears a toupee or has had hair implants to achieve the inimitable look.

ABC anchor Barbara Walters in a 2015 interview poked Trump’s cranium, declaring that it all seemed real.

___

PALIN: THE LUXURY “HOCKEY MOM”

There was shock in 2008 when Republican John McCain’s presidential campaign revealed it had spent more than $165,000 in just over two months on stylists for his vice presidential pick, Sarah Palin.

The excessive costs, which included hairstyling and clothes, undermined the former Alaskan governor’s down-to-Earth “hockey mom” image. Palin’s traveling hairdresser alone was paid $42,615 over a nine-week period, over $700 a day.

___

CHERIE BLAIR’S HAIR NERVES

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s wife Cherie was the subject of national ridicule after she reportedly spent more than $2,668 on a personal hair stylist at a G7 meeting in the United States in 1997.

Stylist Andre Suard was flown to Denver for four days to personally attend to each strand of hair.

A British government spokesman made matters worse when he tried to explain it away — saying that she was simply nervous, since it was her first summit. Mrs. Blair said she paid the costs herself.

___

GATES ATTACKS BERLUSCONI’S HAIR

In 2010, Microsoft founder Bill Gates lambasted then-Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi for putting his hairstyle before foreign aid.

Berlusconi’s hair was the subject of much speculation after photos over the same week showed him with dramatically different degrees of hair growth.

The philanthropist ridiculed the image-conscious Italian’s reported hair transplant and attacked Italy’s poor record on aid. Gates told Germany’s Suddeutsche Zeitung newspaper that “rich people spend a lot more money on their own problems, like baldness, than they do to fight malaria.”

___

BILL CLINTON’S HAIR FORCE ONE

In 1993, President Bill Clinton provoked consternation when he grounded the presidential plane — Air Force One — in Los Angeles, causing two runways at the airport to close for an hour.

The reason? His hair.

Belgian-American stylist Cristophe Schatteman gave the president a $200 haircut as the giant taxpayer-funded plane sat on the tarmac with its engines running. The move delayed some flights, but some media later claimed those delays were exaggerated by Clinton’s critics.

___

AP News Researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York contributed to this report

___

Thomas Adamson can be followed at Twitter.com/ThomasAdamsonAP

Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Latest News

Notable Replies

  1. A Look At Politicians’ Hair Scandals Throughout The Years

    (((crying with head on desk))) I weep because I remember what journalism used to be.

  2. Hey AP, is this the best you have? Do us all a favor and do some honest journalism instead of the lazy-assed, driveling anonymous-sourced, insubstantial, gossip you dare to call “news”. I can get more reliable information from the pamphlet boxes at my local laundromat.

  3. Hey, where’s the cost of Drumpf’s weave?? Oh, that’s right…we’d have to go back a few years to see that as a tax write-off but alas, we can’t…because he’s only the first person in the modern age to not be expected to release his fucking tax returns.

    And I gotta say, a woman gets a shampoo, cut, style and/or perm at such an inflated rate to make even a working woman’s head spin in disbelief at how much she’s forced to pay…Then, for example, has to get her perm or wave taken care of a few times a year just to keep it fresh…so $600 at an upscale NY salon isn’t really that shocking. I learned the hard way what a waste of money I was shelling out after so many years…Wasn’t worth it. Now I’m proud to say I’m au naturel.

    But…$11,000 dollars for the French President or that outrageous bill from Sista Sarah…yeah, that’s gotta hurt. And that really is beyond the pale. Anyway, must be a slow news day if we’ve already gone down the hairdo rabbit hole this early in the campaign. What’s next, how much world leaders spend on golf???

  4. How much they cheat at golf would be a better read!

  5. Here ya go…

    Not a world leader…will never be a world leader, is barely trying to be a world leader, but Donnie Dipshit does qualify as one wanting desperately to be seen as a world leader.

Continue the discussion at forums.talkingpointsmemo.com

Participants

Avatar for system1 Avatar for srfromgr Avatar for imkmu3 Avatar for ralph_vonholst Avatar for occamsrazor2

Continue Discussion
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Deputy Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: