X Factor winner Matt Cardle boasts of now having 'the hair of a 20-year-old' after undergoing a third hair transplant - as he HATES his trademark hat and only wore it as he was going bald. The singer, who scooped the ITV talent show crown in 2010, had suffered with thinning hair for more than a decade, including an extreme receding hairline that he hid under hats.
But being thrust into the spotlight and having the eyes of millions resting on him every Saturday night soon took its toll and further dented his confidence. The 39-year-old claims that make-up artists and hairstylists on the hit show even suggested he should have a hair transplant to boost his lanky locks.
Matt had his first procedures in 2012 and 2014 to tackle thinning hair on the top and front of his head but turned his attention to a third procedure at the end of 2019. Singer Matt, who famously beat One Direction in the singing contest, got in touch with award-winning hair transplant clinic Juvida after seeing their success stories on social media.
In November 2019 he took the plunge and underwent a procedure at their Skipton clinic where individual follicles were taken from the back of his head and inserted into sparse areas of his scalp by hand. Now, two-and-a-half years on, Matt is impressed by his fuller hairline and is speaking out about his procedure to encourage those unhappy with their hair to take the plunge.
Matt said: "Being on the X Factor was when I first started noticing that my hair wasn't as full and as thick as I'd like it to be. I thought it was going a little bit thin so I wore a hat.
"People thought I loved wearing a hat - [but] I hated wearing a hat, I just didn't like having thinning hair. It's not until you've got a million pictures being taken of you and watching yourself back on screens you realise 'wow ok it's thinner than I thought'.
"When you're sat at home in a little town in Essex you're not surrounded by make-up artists and hairstylists going 'oh babe you should get a hair transplant'. I wasn't even going to the hairdressers, I was cutting my own hair so no-one was ever going to tell me to go and get a hair transplant.
"Because I was on the show and I was surrounded by all these people they were like 'you should get a hair transplant' no trouble whatsoever. Being in the spotlight completely compounded everything for me, I was like 'I don't want the game to be up'.
"Other people didn't care but I did, I would just rather have a full head of hair. I tell most people everything, I'm a pretty open person, but when I've bumped into people I haven't told they've said 'I haven't seen you [your hairline] like that since you were 18.
"Now when I'm out it looks as it did when I was 20." Singer Matt mulled over the decision to undergo a third procedure in November 2019 to restore his original hairline after undergoing two others at different clinics in 2012 and 2014.
Matt said: "It's my third hair transplant. The others worked, they were fantastic, but I just continued to lose hair and it was on a different part of my head.
"The first procedure was on the top at the front just where it started to go a little bit thin. The second one was there again and a little bit towards the crown.
"The only reason I went to Juvida was because my actual hairline at the front started to recede at the sides a little bit, it just sucked. I wondered if they could bring my hairline back to its former glory and they said 'yeah absolutely'.
"The procedure with Juvida was just to restore my original hairline, which they've done to great effect." Matt admits that hair loss can affect men just as much as it can women, citing the old adage of being able to 'just shave it off' is true - but it can still be 'traumatic' for those experiencing it.
Matt said: "If anything's going to age you when you look at someone, it's hair. It made me really self-conscious. A lot of people that I talk to seem to think that because you're a guy it's fine, you can just shave your head.
"But I can tell you for free that a guy that doesn't want to lose his hair would feel the same sort of trauma and insecurity than if someone like, for example, Jennifer Aniston was going bald from the front back. Yes we more commonly shave our heads but it's a complete misnomer that men don't give a sh*t about their hair because they do.
"It's one thing you can do to express yourself and to feel confident and if it slowly but surely falls off your head it's just sh*t. I know it's a fickle, shallow thing but the fact of the matter is you can do something about it."
Matt is speaking out about his experience to bust the 'taboo' of undergoing a hair transplant - claiming it should be just as 'normal' as having lip fillers or other cosmetic surgery. Matt said: "When I got my first one done in 2012 it was still a little bit kind of taboo then.
"I just get so angry about that because women can put stuff into their lips or their chest and it's fine. But if a man moves hair from the back of his head to the top of his head it's [not] - it really winds me up.
"There's no taboo or shame in it whatsoever. I just saw that people were talking about it more and it was becoming such an open, spoken about thing.
"Juvida were the people I could see at the forefront of that, which is why I really wanted to get involved with them to do it. I could see their results were amazing, it was an absolutely amazing experience."
Hair transplant surgeon at Juvida Dr Umear Ahmad said: "It was a pleasure to have undertaken a hair transplant on Matt. We wanted to restore his anterior hairline, back to the way it used to be and we have managed to do just that. In doing so we have also helped restore his confidence.
"We are incredibly happy with the result and delighted Matt feels the same way. Matt will receive ongoing care from us at Juvida in order to maintain density and prevent further hair loss through our PRP prevention plan and dense hair loss medication."
For more information or to find out how Juvida can help you, visit juvidaclinics.com
Freemantle declined to comment.
