Seth Rogen says his viral bleach-blond hair was ‘objectively pathetic’

Seth Rogen has shared his candid thoughts about his viral bleach-blond hair look.

The 41-year-old actor spoke about his previous hairstyle during an interview with Newsweek alongside Rose Byrne, his co-star in the new comedy show Platonic. Rogen first went viral for his blond hair in June 2022, with fans calling him the “sexiest person alive” and “man of [their] dreams”.

Speaking to Newsweek, Rogen said that he was quite amused by these reactions, since he’d only dyed his hair for his role in Platonic.

“I remember that happening and being like, ‘If people only knew, I’m not that cool.’ It’s merely a character I’m playing,” he said.

The Knocked Up star explained why his character went blond, before expressing why he thought he looked  “pathetic”.

“What’s funny is, in the show, my character is having a midlife crisis. So I’m dating a girl in her twenties, so I bleached my hair because I hear she likes Machine Gun Kelly,” he said. “What’s funny is it actually looked very good, and I got tons of compliments, but the subtext of a 41-year-old man bleaching his hair blond is objectively pathetic.”

He noted that despite all the praise he got for his hair, he couldn’t ignore that “subtext” behind it, which is why he got rid of the blond. Rogen also said he felt his peers would mock him if he kept the platinum look.

“As good as it looked, I could not ignore the subtext and then I did cut it off, and a lot of my friends were like, ;I thought you were gonna keep it going, it looked good,’” he added.  “And I was like, ‘If I did, you would have judged me. I know you would have thought it looked good but you would have thought of me a little differently than you do.’”

Last year, fans first praised Rogen for his bleach-blond hairstyle in an Instagram video, as he was seen rolling a joint. Instagram users also applauded his set of orange and lilac nails, which matched the design of the ashtray.

Meanwhile, Rogen’s decision to go blond isn’t his first time changing his appearance for a role. During an interview on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon in November, the actor confessed that he shaved the back of his hairline for Steven Speilberg’s biographical film, The Fabelmans.

According to Rogen, his character was supposed to have a “very receding hairline”. So, before shooting for the movie started, he said that Speilberg told him: “I want you to cut back your hairline so it looks like you’re going much more bald than you are.” Rogen noted that once he agreed to shave his hairline, it was “very drastic” and noticeable to him. However, he said his peers didn’t really pick up on the change that he made.

“Instead, I kept running into people I know and seeing them, and no one said anything and that made me realise, to them, I’m balding,” the Pineapple Express star explained. “I was already balding. It wasn’t a shift.”