“When you have short hair, you have to color it often, cause my hair grows really fast,” she explained during a 2019 episode. “I’m constantly coloring it, so it always looks different when you watch the show. Some days it’s a different tone. Today it’s really different.”
Ellen explained that she used a different hairstylist than usual, but their efforts to speed up the coloring process backfired—badly.
“It was basically many colors,” she said. “I couldn’t even pinpoint what color it was. It was like orange and pink and purple… I had the Pride flag on me.”
“My hair was falling out,” the comedian went on. “Like literally, I would touch my head and hair was falling out. I think my hair was so embarrassed, it didn’t want anything to do with my head and said, ‘I’m getting out of here.’”
Fortunately, Ellen was able to rectify the issue with an at-home appointment, but she had to take extra caution to prevent further hair damage.
“Literally, I can’t touch it,” she said. “I can’t wash it. I should be fine if I don’t blink or sneeze.”
And while she’s mostly maintained her signature blonde style since then, she’s made other changes in life, including releasing her final comedy special—Ellen DeGeneres: For Your Approval, out on Netflix now—and moving across the pond to the Cotswolds in rural England, according to multiple reports.