Barber Says Turkish President Is Losing His Hair Through Stress

If you want to know what a celebrity is really like, ask the man who cuts his hair. The same is true of politicians and world leaders  the man they go to see for a trim is arguably more likely than any other ‘outsider’ to have shared quiet, personal moments with their famous customer. As a result, the hairdresser often has a genuine insight into what makes their big-name client tick.

Inside information

But such close bonds come with a price: the barber knows more about your hair than anyone, including whether you have a thinning crown, split ends or a secret fixation with hair dye. And he might not be too careful with this private information when speaking to the press.

It’s something that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan discovered to his peril when his barber Yasar Ayhan let slip about his hair loss when he was interviewed by the Daily Telegraph last week.

Mr Ayhan said that the president needed to visit less often than he used to because he was “losing his hair from stress.”

Hair loss evident for some time

Luckily, the pair go way back they grew up together in the same part of Istanbul so Mr Ayhan’s indiscretion is unlikely to be taken too seriously. Also, the camera doesn’t lie and as President Erdogan is one of Turkey’s most-photographed public figures, his hair loss has been evident for all to see for some time.

The President typically wears his hair in a slick side parting, which tends to emphasise a receding hairline in men with Male Pattern Baldness. This genetic condition affects up to 50 per cent of men by the time they are 50, so at 61 Mr Erdogan would, in fact, be one of the luckier ones if he was showing no signs of hair loss at his age.

Erdogan is by no means the only person thinning in the Turkish parliament, as photographs of brawling politicians taken during a heated debate in 2014 - seen here - clearly show. A distinct majority of the men in the scuffle are in the same boat - luckily for some of those involved, one of Turkey's fastest growing areas of commerce is in the field of hair transplant operations.

Hair loss and stress