When a celebrity adopts an unconventional new hairstyle, it always makes headlines, and nothing attracts more curiosity or comment than a shaved head, especially when the head in question belongs to a woman.

But the words “shaved” and “bald” have a tendency to be used too often these days, for haircuts that bear little resemblance to bald haircuts, which would never be called shaved if they were a man’s. If we want to be finicky, a shave requires a razor and baldness usually means a smooth head. Is it because we are so obsessed with the idea that women need long, luxurious hair that anything substantially less than that is bald? Is it just a creative exaggeration from the press? You make your own decision.

To illustrate, here are a variety of famous women who reportedly went bald at some point in their careers. Let’s see who was really shaved and who wasn’t.

Persis Khambatta (Star Trek: The Motion Picture) – Unmistakably clean shaven and completely bald. I would go so far as to declare Persis the benchmark for female celebrity baldness. It had a smooth, bald, and totally bare dome. They are not much softer than the model and former beauty queen circa 1978-79. Years after her death, it remains the image most associated with her.

Britney Spears: It was buzzed to the skin, but Britney did not get to shave her head. Why, of all the nonsense Britney did at the time, is getting a haircut considered the ultimate proof of insanity? Without a doubt, it is one of the most benign.

Natalie Portman (V for Vendetta) – A really nice combination. Someone who already has a following of horny fanboys, and is generally considered sexy, cuts himself off for a role in a movie and sports the unshaven beard look both on and off screen. There are definite parallels to Persis, and Portman might as well have done for the female haircut what Persis did for bald women, but let’s be perfectly honest. Natalie Portman was not bald.

Amber Rose: The bleached blonde hair creates an illusion of baldness for the casual observer, and has sometimes stuck it quite close to the scalp, but it is not bald. As a model and celebrity girlfriend, she seems to get some criticism for her extreme hairstyle. I think she looks fantastic, although she is not the kind of girl I would take home to meet Mom.

Cassie, Rihanna, and the rest of the girls on the buzzed side – The cropped side is an interesting look, it turns heads, but come on. That’s not even remotely close to a bald head.

Sigourney Weaver (Alien 3) – Buzzed very close, but not softly. I admire her reaction when they asked her to remove her hair for the movie. I wanted more money. Good for her. I can never decide if Sigourney looks good in a buzz or not, but I also can’t decide if I find Sigourney attractive or not. Its appeal seems to change from movie to movie, and I can never understand why.

Maggie McOmie (THX 1138) – Maggie could be up for debate. She was shaved properly before filming began, but we mostly see her sporting different amounts of peach fluff on screen. I guess it counts as shaved, because he actually shaved his head.

Demi Moore (GI Jane): This is another gray area. I was not bald for the movie. He snipped it off on screen and spent the rest of the movie just a bit of a beard, leaving her technically not bald. However, after Demi finished filming the movie, she gently shaved her head in her own time and appeared in public with her dome shaved. Very cool.

Bai Ling (Anna and the King) – Shaved, sure. Bai Ling is another with some real guts, as her raven hair was past her butt when she shaved her head, and it was only because of some real on-screen baldness.

Joan Chen (You Seng: Temptation of a Monk) – Not only did Joan shave her head, but we also see a bit of a no-foam straight razor shaving in this Asian movie. Chen’s character, a kind of bounty hunter, poses as an initiate to infiltrate a temple where a runaway general poses as a monk. Chen only shaved his head for a brief part of the movie. Once again, a truly bald dome, and not a bad movie either.

Samantha Morton (Minority Report) – Although she was described by the media at the time as bald or shaved, Samantha Morton was called up to her beard for the role of Agatha, one of the three psychics enslaved by the police of the future to predict acts. criminals before. occur. Definitely not bald.

Annie Burgstede (Smallville) – A bald spot seems like a reasonable move for a homicide-obsessed character with Lex Luthor, but actually doing it, and doing it for real, is more than I bargained for from Smallville. I have to salute any woman who shaves her completely bald head for the final act of an hour-long television episode. That’s doubled in Burgstede’s case, when it’s a teen drama full of beautiful people, and she’s the crazy one who shares a scene with a perfectly styled Erica Durance. Pretty brave.

Virginia Hey (Farscape) – In Mad Max 2, she was the hottie with the crossbow and the big golden hair from the 80s. And in the 90s, she adopted a hairless pate to play an alien hottie (there are shades of Persis there) in the Farscape series. She was already in love with the role when the topic of shaving her head came up and she was ready to go. What’s really impressive here is the commitment. It is one thing to shave your head for a role in a movie or a single episode, but quite another to do it for a series that may require you to remain bald for most of the next four or five years.

Linh Dan Pham and Simona Maicanescu (Dante 01) – Both women and the entire cast got shaved for this French sci-fi movie. I’m not exactly sure why this was, other than giving things a sterile and dystopian look, and reminiscent of both THX 1138 and Alien 3.

Delphine Chaneac (Splicing) – With all the digital tricks the filmmakers used to turn this charming French actress into a genetically modified human-animal chimera, you would almost have expected them to fake bald heads too, but it’s the real deal. Chaneac apparently had no qualms about shaving his head and enjoyed being bald. And despite the somewhat unnatural nature of her character, she manages to be very pretty, in a creepy way.

Robin Tunney (Empire Records) – Not shaved, but an on-screen haircut with scissors for the role of a troubled teenager. A memorable scene in an otherwise forgettable movie.

Judith Light (Wit) – Judith Light, from the 1980s sitcom Who’s the Boss, shaved her head for the role of Prof. Vivian Bearing in this drama, as many other actresses have done to star in many productions of the works over the years. A professional play is another potentially long-term commitment to staying bald, and this was a drastic change from the fluffy blonde hair of the ’80s that we all remember.

Emma Thompson (Wit) – Thompson was shaved for the role of Bearing in the HBO television movie of Wit.

Sofia Vassilieva (My Sister’s Guardian) – The teenage actress had her hair and eyebrows shaved by a cancer patient. Vassilieva said at the time that it was the least she could do for such a wonderful character, and it gave her a better idea of ​​what her character was going through. Compare that to his co-star, Cameron Diaz, who opted for a latex cap that gave him a flabby, swollen alien head. And yet Diaz, looking anything but realistic, managed to capture the headlines for his “bald” appearance. Go figure.

Of course, there are many more women in show business who have shaved or combed their hair, whether in public, on stage or on screen, or in the media, but the ones listed here explain it quite well. If you know others, decide if they really shaved.

Just remember, there’s shave and buzz, but bald spots never count … never.