Louis Theroux has “forewarned” his fans about his changing appearance as he deals with alopecia.
The documentary maker and celebrity interviewer has been sharing selfies to update his Instagram followers on his hair loss.
In a new post shared on Tuesday (5 July), the Weird Weekends presenter told his fans that he has started losing hair from his eyebrows and it is not growing back.
“Oh jeez it looks like the alopecia has migrated up to my eyebrow,” he wrote in the caption.
“I realise you aren’t all awaiting every update on its progress but I want people to acclimatise to the new partially depilated me and not freak everyone out by suddenly appearing in public like a half-plucked elephant bird with no forewarning,” he explained. “So this is where we’re at.”
Theroux said that he is hoping to “keep his eyebrows” but cannot control what happens next.
“It’s out of my hands at this point… tho I have started taking vitamin d and something called biotin,” he explained.
Alopecia is a condition that occurs when the immune system attacks hair follicles and causes hair loss, typically affecting hair growth on the head and face.
Earlier this year, Theroux opened up about his hair loss, sharing a selfie after he lost some hair growth in his beard.
“So this is what my beard grows like now due to what I think is probably alopecia. Basically I get a little triangle of stubble around my mouth and some more at the sides,” he told fans.
“It’s not a big deal, but I don’t want people to think I’m doing something creative with my facial hair and doing it badly, when it’s just what I look like when I don’t shave.”
“This is also why I don’t wear a beard as much anymore. Maybe it’ll grow back. Who knows? It mainly happened over the course of 2022. You get a sense of how it progressed from the other two photos taken six months before and a year before.”
Then, in June, he shared another update, telling his followers that nature was “playing a cruel trick” on him.
“Thanks to my alopecia barbae (“of the beard”) I can now only grow a weird little Hitler moustache. This is what I look like after three days not shaving,” he said.
“And now a bald patch has appeared on the back of my head making me wonder if my proper hair-hair might be next to go. In two years or less I may be bald! [sigh]”
Theroux then joked that “thankfully there’s always audio”, before reminding fans that he was releasing new episodes of his latest project The Louis Theorux Podcast.
Fans have continued to show their support for Theroux following each alopecia update he has shared, with one fan writing: “Hair or no hair – you’re awesome – your shows are awesome.”
Another added: “Thank you for raising awareness of alopecia!” as another wrote: “However you are, we love you Louis.”
