House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was slammed by Republicans this week after Fox News obtained surveillance footage of her inside a San Francisco salon.
The problem? California stylists have been banned from working indoors for months because of the pandemic. And the footage showed her with her mask pulled down around her neck.
Right-wing commentator Ben Shapiro tweeted that she had “a Marie Antoinette thing going on there.” Even the owner of the salon said it was “a slap in the face.”
The White House was all over it at press secretary Kayleigh McEnany’s press briefing Thursday.
Pelosi insisted it was “a setup” — the stylist had told her it was okay to have one client inside at a time, and she had her mask down only briefly while getting a shampoo.
But we can’t say history didn’t warn her. Haircuts and styles have been landing politicians in hot water for a long time.
In 1993, The Washington Post’s Reliable Source revealed that President Bill Clinton got a haircut aboard Air Force One as it sat on a Los Angeles International Airport runway. Other outlets reported the trim had delayed commercial flights. The rumors of an air-traffic jam turned out to be untrue, but the cost of the haircut — $200 — was still a scandal. (That’s about $360 in 2020 dollars.)
Hard to believe now with our warp-speed news cycle, but the controversy dominated headlines for at least six weeks, and “blemished [Clinton’s] public image.” The stylist, Cristophe of Beverly Hills, became pre-Twitter famous.
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Nearly 15 years later, former senator John Edwards seemed to almost repeat Clinton’s “Hair Force One” fiasco. Once again, media reported on his expensive haircuts from a Beverly Hills stylist — but this time they cost $400, the stylist was flown in, and the charges showed up on Edwards’s campaign spending reports.
Edwards, who was running for president on an anti-poverty platform, said he was embarrassed and reimbursed the campaign. But it turned out that wasn’t his only hair-raising campaign behavior; he was also having an extramarital affair. Edwards was eventually indicted on corruption charges. At trial, he was found not guilty on one charge, and a mistrial was declared on all of the other charges.
In 2012, the New York Post claimed the disgraced politician was going to Supercuts, where the charge was $12.95.
Political scandals over expensive hair-dos aren’t confined to these shores, either. In 2016, #CoiffeurGate erupted in France when it was revealed President François Hollande’s hairstylist was being paid $11,000 a month.
A government spokeswoman made things even worse by justifying the expense: “Everyone has their hair done, don’t they? This hairdresser had to abandon his salon, and he’s on tap 24 hours a day.” The hairdresser was reportedly so busy shaping the presidential cheveux that he missed the births of his children.
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And then there’s President Trump’s hair, legendary for his locks long before he entered politics, and not for its price but rather the mystery of what exactly is going on with it. He has always insisted the signature wispy, hair-sprayed tumbleweed on his head is his own hair. But who cuts it? In 2004, he told Playboy that his then-fiancee, first lady Melania Trump, cut his hair. And in 2016, the Hollywood Reporter claimed Trump told a stylist, “The only one I allow to touch my hair is Melania.”
But that same year, then-candidate Trump allowed late-night host Jimmy Fallon not just to touch it, but to give it an infamous ruffle.
Trump opponents slammed Fallon for “normalizing” the Republican candidate. Fallon’s ratings fell by 20 percent, and he has repeatedly apologized for the episode, saying he “made a mistake.”
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Political hair changes are not always perilous, however. While on the campaign trail in 1860, Abraham Lincoln was described as gaunt, hatchet-faced and a “horrid-looking wretch.” Then he got a letter from 11-year-old Grace Bedell, who advised him “if you will let your whiskers grow … you would look a great deal better.”
He listened. And, perhaps more importantly, the style tip was free.
Read more Retropolis:
‘Honest Abs’: The story behind that shirtless Lincoln statue flirting with the Internet
Under attack, VP trailblazer Geraldine Ferraro faced 250 reporters at ‘marathon press conference’
Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter have been married longer than most presidents were alive
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