Celebrities who look totally different with their natural hair

Celebrities tend to be style chameleons by nature, changing their looks to suit their latest roles. This means that, somewhere along the way, the celeb sheds their original look. And it all seems to start with the hair! What don't stars do to their coifs? Coloring, cutting, straightening, curling — celebrities tweak their hair more than most people change their sheets. So, when their natural hue or texture makes the occasional cameo, it can, frankly, come as quite the shock.


On one hand, it's almost impossible to imagine that certain stars' iconic tresses aren't natural (we're looking at you, Mandy Moore). But, while the following celebrities could likely rock any kind of locks, there's something undeniably cool about seeing their authentic hair. It's like peeking behind the Great and Powerful Oz's curtain.

Here are a few of Hollywood's natural hair transformations that'll surprise you — they very well may inspire you to update your own.


Meghan Markle

Being Prince Harry's bride means dealing with the constant specter of scrutiny. Couple that with the fact that she was an actress before her royal engagement, and that means Meghan Markle gets photographed a lot. As such, the public has become accustomed to seeing the Suits star rock long, sleek (sometimes loosely curled) locks.

However, fans suspected perhaps Markle — whose mother is African-American and father is Caucasian — could have naturally curly hair. One of those fans, TV host Kamie Crawford, proved persistent enough to ferret out a few throwback photos of Markle pre-fame (and pre-Prince). "SOLVED MY OWN CASE!" Crawford exclaimed on Twitter. "We got curls in the royal palace y'all!!!" Crawford also joked about wanting to start a petition to "get Meghan to wear a fresh wash & go around the palace."

And why not? Markle's hair looks gorgeous both ways, likely a result of how well she cares for it. In an interview with Beauty Banter, the actress-turned-royal-bride shared her secret for healthy relaxed hair: "Kerastase (masquintense & the oleo relax line) and Wella, which has a hair oil that I am obsessed with. It smells like vacation and makes your hair slippery and touchable." Sold!

Mandy Moore

Close your eyes and picture Mandy Moore. You're thinking of Rebecca Pearson from This Is Us, aren't you? Ever since NBC introduced the hit tear-jerking series, it's become difficult to separate Moore from her TV mom persona. So difficult, in fact, that it's rare for us to recollect that the star actually got her start as a teen belting out bubblegum pop in the '90s.

Although Moore's mane has been chestnut brown for more than a decade now, her hair's original hue is closer to the one she entered the industry with — circa 1999 "Candy" music video blonde. In an interview with PopSugar in 2017, Moore said those OG locks make her "shudder a little bit to myself" — her trademark brown "feels the most like me."

It's no wonder she never looked back after dying her hair darker for 2002's A Walk to Remember. "Well I was blonde then and, for the most part, haven't gone back since," she told Entertainment Weekly. "It was transformative because it came at a time in my life when I was only seen from the pop music landscape and through that lens. There was a real significance to coloring my hair."

Zendaya

When you step into the spotlight as young as Zendaya did (she was barely a teen when she landed the role of Rocky Blue on Shake It Up), your "look" can become synonymous with who you are. For years, Zendaya straightened her naturally curly hair to align with her public image and, per the star herself, it was because she simply wasn't confident wearing her hair natural.


"Growing up, I wasn't very confident in my curls," she told People StyleWatch (via Mic). "It wasn't like the hair that girls around me had. And nobody really knew what to do with my hair." Fast forward to January 2017, and The Greatest Showman star shared insight into her natural hair journey:

"When you've spent the past however many years growing your damaged hair back, avoiding heat, wearing wigs and trying every natural product in the world and you finally see a little curl pattern comin back," Zendaya wrote on Instagram, underscoring the sentiment with multiple praise hands emojis. In the time since, she's rocked it everywhere from award shows to movie premieres, and often doles out advice on caring for natural black hair.

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