Reba McEntire Chopping Off Essentially All Her Hair Is So Rebellious & Cool
The Happy's Place actress transformed.
Reba McEntire serving pixie cut realness? It happened!
In the late 1990s, the Country queen turned sitcom star, now leading NBC's Happy's Place, chopped off basically all of her signature red hair, opting for a close-cropped cut that looked downright edgy.
Reba rocked her shortest hair in 1998
1998 was the year she released the song "Forever Love" and got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. And it was the year McEntire absolutely perfected the shaggy pixie cut, looking both punk and elegant at every event. Co-hosting the People's Choice Awards with Ray Romano, they have almost the same 'do!
RELATED: You'll Love Reba McEntire's Hair in This '90s Throwback Photo with Ray Romano
The look is a touch more sophisticated than the super-tight curls she had in the 1980s, and that was on purpose. Talking to Glamour, McEntire revealed that she wasn't crazy about the results of her perm, so she decided that as the 90s drew to a close, she'd cut everything off to start all over.
"It was in ’96 or ’97 when I cut my hair off, and it was freeing. But you know what? I had to talk to my management and my stylist who did my hair, because it took almost a year for me to talk them into letting me cut my hair," she said, explaining, "They told me my hair was my image. 'You got your big hair all jacked up to Jesus. You can’t cut your hair off.' And I said, 'Well, it’ll give you something else to talk about.' And they said, 'Oh, okay. That’s an idea.' So we did."
It was all part of a makeover ahead of an album release, and to keep her "new look" under wraps until the record dropped, McEntire wore wigs in public for five months!
Reba McEntire opened up about the pressures of beauty standards
During an April 2024 interview with E!, the star reflected on growing up with insecurities. "I was pale, [had] lots of freckles and frizzy hair," McEntire recalled. "And my girlfriends had long, black, straight, beautiful round curls. Another girlfriend could tan easily, so I'd lay out with her, and she would get brown as a biscuit—and I'd be blistered."
RELATED: See Reba McEntire Without Her Signature Deep Red Hair Shade
Eventually, though, she started seeing her different-ness as a power, not a flaw. "I finally figured it out: I'm not supposed to be like them — I'm just me," McEntire explained. "It took me a long time to accept that and realize that it set me free."
