Joel McHale Admits to Spending $10,000 on 4 Hair Transplants

Joel McHale is keeping it real about his hair journey.

Appearing as a guest on the June 16 episode of the We Might Be Drunk podcast, co-hosted by Mark Normand and Sam Morril, the actor and comedian, 53, revealed that he has had four hair transplants to get his locks back.

“Yeah, I’m fully bald … This is four transplants. I did it way back when it was a strip,” McHale explained, referring to the hair transplant method that involves removing a strip of scalp. “Painful. Don’t do a strip.”

“Do plucking,” he emphasized, noting how the procedure has evolved in recent years. “Now they pluck it from the whole back section, and it’s a miracle.” 

McHale then noted that in spite of the viral online trend of heading to Turkey for a hair transplant, he received the procedure in Los Angeles. “I can get you a name of a guy in Turkey,” he jokingly quipped, before adding, “But just make sure, because if somebody is like, ‘I’ll do it for $3,000,’ then you don’t. You get what you pay for.”

The Animal Control star went on to share that he spent $10,000 on the procedures, but noted, “it might have gone up.”

McHale is not the first actor to go public with details on a hair transplant procedure. In April, John Cena revealed he had also undergone the procedure. “You chant and you make me feel small and you embarrass me,” Cena, 47, told the WWE World crowd while appearing on the The Pat McAfee Show.

“Y’all don’t know what that’s like. That is straight-up bullying. That’s just not cool. I don’t like it. So, thank you for bullying me into getting surgical hair replacement. That’s how far y’all push me,” Cena said at the time.

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In January, The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives star Dakota Mortensen also began documenting his journey with receiving a hair transplant.

In a TikTok video shared from the operating room set to the tune of Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us,” Mortensen, 32, wrote in the caption, “When they leave you alone in a room you shouldn’t be left alone in,” adding the hashtags, “#hairtransplant #balding #daddy.”