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.”
Courtesy of the Cincinnati Bengals
When the Bengals’ Instagram account shared photos on Monday of their star player sporting a fuschia T-shirt, tropical-printed shorts, patchwork Ugg slippers, and his uncharacteristically edgy new hair—with 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 his arrival in Ohio. The Bengals’ favorite barber gave us the scoop on Burrow’s new cut—and how you can ask for it yourself.
GQ: So, whose idea was the blond buzz cut?
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.
