Rooney's RM150,000 hair transplant wears thin
Wayne Rooney, Manchester United’s star striker and England’s great hope for Euro 2012, might want to ask for a refund from the doctors who stitched up his head exactly one year ago.
Back then, the 26-year-old spent £30,000 to get the Elton John treatment for his premature hair loss—chump change for the fifth highest-paid footballer of 2012 in the world, who’s estimated to make £17 million this year (that’s roughly RM84 million).
However, at recent training sessions with his England teammates, Roo’s revealed a lot more scalp than a healthy, expensive crop.
It’s a real head scratcher considering that he boasted a rather thick thatch in the months after the operation. Roo received the “follicular transfer” treatment at a London clinic, in which hair follicles are extracted from lush patches and reinserted where the hair is thinning.
Fans on Twitter were quick to speculate that Roo seemed to be growing out what’s left of his hair to hide his bald patches. Two days ago, however, he revealed a new Michael Fassbender-like look by shaving off the sides and back of his head. Talk about a RM150,000 haircut!
Meanwhile, inspired after seeing Roo undergo the procedure, former England footballer-turned-pundit Micky Gray decided he would go under the knife, too. This week, the 37-year-old TV presenter went through the first UK hair transplant that was streamed live on the Internet.
Roughly 22,000 people watched as Dr Bessam Farjo performed the nine-hour surgery, taking over 5,000 healthy hair follicles from the sides and back of Micky’s head and implanting them at the front of his scalp after making hundreds of incisions.
When it was all over, the patient sent this Twitter message: “Well what a day I’ve had 2day. Head is a little sore right now but worth it. Thankyou to @BessamFarjo and his lovely team.”
Micky first noticed his receding hairline when he was 27, and said the transplant would help improve his confidence because he works in the media now and he’s conscious of how he looks.
“Cosmetic surgery now is an everyday occurrence,” he said before the operation. “I think it’s more acceptable now and that was one of the reasons that I wanted to go through with it. People refer to the harrowing experience a woman must go through when losing her hair. However it can be equally upsetting for men who can suffer from a severe loss of self-esteem.”
According to Dr Farjo, who’s been doing hair transplants for 20 years, the procedure is like gardening. “We’re removing bulbs of hair from one part of the scalp to another, but we can’t pluck it out; we have to move it with the bed around it, like soil. As long as you keep it alive, keep it in its soil, it picks up again.”
Source: Daily Mail
Published: 15 June 2012
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