40 Celebrities Who Look Completely Different Without Their Signature Styles

It should come as no surprise that singer Elton John has one of the biggest sunglasses collections in the world. Apparently he has more than 200,000 pairs. Over the years he’s worn feathered sunglasses, neon sunglasses, bejeweled sunglasses… and sometimes, very rarely, no sunglasses. He still wore the hats, though.

Are you ready to be really shocked? Reese Witherspoon, a woman so blonde she was even in a movie called <I>Legally Blonde</i>… is actually a brunette. She proved it when she posted a throwback picture of herself in 2019. So whenever she uses brown hair dye for roles, as she sometimes does, she’s much closer to her natural hair color. That’s going to make the upcoming <I>Legally Blonde 3</i> super awkward!

Gwen Stefani loves her red lipstick – she’s been wearing that color since her late teens when her grandmother gifted some to her for Christmas. Remove that shade from her lips, though, and suddenly she looks like a totally different person. Sometimes it’s the tiniest things that make the most difference.

Everyone loves how Jason Momoa looks with that beard. It’s what he had for Aquaman and Game of Thrones and yep, very good choice there. But come 2019, to the horror of his fans, he shaved the whole thing off. Why? Well, it was to highlight environmental issues – and it worked.

Arguably it was those big dark eyebrows that made Cara Delevingne as famous as she is. They’re all natural and she doesn’t even have to do much to them. So it’s really strange to see her with those beautiful brows bleached white and invisible. It’s not something she does very often.

Actress Helena Bonham Carter is everyone’s goth queen. She even used to be Tim Burton’s girlfriend, in case you had any doubt. She’s known for serving up the most amazing witchy looks at industry events and her wild dark hair’s a big part of that. But yet – she’s gone blonde before! No, really!

As a Duchess, Kate Middleton has to follow the royal rulebook on dressing. So whenever she’s out in public her clothes must be restrained, appropriate and most certainly not casual wear. But she’s still been snapped in more everyday outfits from time to time. She’s even been caught wearing pants, in fact, allegedly something the Queen disapproves of a little.

Patrick Stewart began losing his hair while he was still a teenager, so you’ve probably never seen him in anything where he wasn’t bald. Pictures of an adult Stewart sporting hair are around, though – they’re just wigs. Stewart did a few roles in the U.K. with toupees before he embraced his baldness, and thank goodness he did embrace it.

For a long time Sia only went out with a massive wig concealing her face. She explained her reasoning on the Carpool Karaoke show in 2016: “I thought, ‘What doesn’t exist in pop music at the moment?’ And it was mystery.” But she’s shown her real face to cameras in recent years.

Harry Styles, a very aptly named man, was beloved by all for his beautiful curls. Then – shock, horror – come September 2019 they were gone. Fans were devastated. Thankfully, the loss of long curly hair didn’t mean a loss of his dazzling and androgynous fashion style, which was still as perfect as ever.

Nick Offerman’s always proud to have a face full of fuzz. In 2014 he told Men’s Journal magazine, “I think in my natural habitat, which would be my woodshop, I would just always look like something from a Peter Jackson film with a lot of hair and beard.” Which is why it’s so weird to see him without it.

Anna Wintour’s sunglasses are an important part of her look, and she has a good reason for wearing them all the time. She told CNN in 2019 that she finds the dark glasses “incredibly useful because you avoid people knowing what you’re thinking about.” So when you stumble on pictures of her sunglasses-less, maybe she didn’t care if people knew what she was thinking that day.

Think of actor Sam Elliott and what do you think of first? The big grey mustache, right? The man himself – Elliott, not the mustache – even told AARP magazine in 2015 that he felt “naked” without his facial hair. But every so often he has to shave it off for roles, and the result’s quite unsettling.

People have noticed for a long time that Victoria Beckham doesn’t smile. Whenever she’s in front of a camera, she simply pouts instead. She does it completely on purpose and told Vogue magazine in 2015, “I’m smiling on the inside, but I feel like I have a responsibility to the fashion community.” Yet there are some pics out there with her smile on display.

Natalie Portman’s gorgeous brown hair is one of her most defining features. You can barely imagine her without it. And yet, back in 2005 she shaved her head entirely – on film, no less – for her part in the film V for Vendetta. She looked very different indeed, though still beautiful.

Adele surprised everyone when she suddenly shed loads of weight in 2020. But that was never her trademark – the cat eye makeup is. It’s iconic and, according to her makeup specialist Michael Ashton, some work’s required to get it exactly right. It makes sense that she wouldn’t always wear it, of course, but it’s still strange to see her cat-eye-less.

Behind that wacky mouse mask Deadmau5’s a Canadian DJ named Joel Zimmerman, and he’s had some trouble with his trademark at times. Disney took legal action against him in 2014, claiming that the mask looked too much like Mickey Mouse, though he’s continued to wear it in the years since. Zimmerman looks fine without the mouse head, but it’s just part of his persona at this point.

Guy Fieri has his own unique style – the frosted tips, the sunglasses, the patterned shirts. It’s weird seeing him without even one of those things, but here you go – he does occasionally ditch the shirt in favor of a suit if it’s appropriate. If you want to see him with non-blond hair, though, you’ll have to rely on Photoshop.

Taylor Swift started out with a very classic, very wholesome country-girl sort of look. Then as the years passed she became more and more sophisticated, and started to experiment a little. You’ll probably never see her in anything too wacky, but the dyed hair and metallic dress she wore to the 2016 Met Ball was far from her usual aesthetic.

Singer Lorde usually rocks a gothic look, all wild hair and dark lips. It’s an aesthetic W magazine described in 2017 as “glam teen witch.” It matched her style of music perfectly, too. But sometimes she chooses a more down-to-earth, subtle way of dressing, one that renders her almost unrecognizable.

Apart from the muscles, probably the most recognizable feature of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is his bald head. He shaved it all off deliberately – he once posted a rather graphic summary on Twitter of what it was like before – and never looked back. There are still a few photographs around of him with hair, though.

Marilyn Monroe’s one of the most famous blondes in history – but it wasn’t her natural hair color. She was actually a brunette, and transforming her hair took quite the toll. Getting that iconic blonde ’do meant her natural hair ended up ruined by the treatments required. Like a lot of Monroe’s life, it’s a sad story.

There’s no doubt about it, Jeff Bridges has one of the most famous beards in Hollywood. At times it’s short, at others it’s eye-catchingly long, but it’s always there. Well, almost always. Every so often a part requires that he dispenses with it, and it’s shocking how different he looks. He always grows it out when he isn’t working, though, so you’ll see many more photos of bearded Bridges than the bare-chinned version.

Green Day rocker Billie Joe Armstrong has been wearing eyeliner for as long as he’s been in the public eye. He even teamed up with Kat von D and released his own brand of it in 2017, named Basket Case in honor of one of his band’s biggest hits. And yet sometimes, very occasionally, he’s snapped not sporting any.

Tilda Swinton’s always rocked an androgynous look. Her style is short hair and a pale, glacial beauty. Then the film Trainwreck came out in 2015 and it gave the world a strikingly different Swinton. In that movie she was a bronzed, makeup-laden dirty blonde, and her own mother wouldn’t have recognized her.

Cool sunglasses are absolutely the trademark of U2 front-man Bono, but he doesn’t just wear them for fashion. He’s actually had the eye syndrome glaucoma for much of his life, so the sunglasses are there for medical purposes. That’s why it’s so unusual to see him without them.

Kerry Washington was known for having straight hair throughout the hit series Scandal, in which she played main character Olivia Pope. But once that was done, she grew her hair out naturally. “Olivia has encouraged me to be more bold with my beauty looks, but so have my kids,” she told Glamour magazine in 2018. “Wearing my natural hair on the red carpet has a lot to do with me being a mom now and wanting to reflect that for them.”

Actor Jared Leto has a certain, well, Jesus-y look to him and has done for a while. When he cut all his long hair off and shaved his beard to play the Joker in Suicide Squad, fans were horrified – but it soon grew back. It seems such is his devotion to his craft that he’s willing to sacrifice his trademark locks.

Ever since they first started out, the men who made up Daft Punk – Thomas Bangalter and Manuel de Homem-Christo – were determined to keep their faces hidden. First they wore bin bags over their heads, then they put Halloween masks on, then finally they got hold of their now-iconic helmets. But despite their devotion to anonymity, photos of their faces are still out there.

Cameron Diaz is famous for her lovely blonde hair, but every so often she dyes it dark brown. Her hairstylist Tracey Cunningham informed InStyle magazine in 2016, “Cameron’s a natural blonde but can pull off brunette hair, too.” She certainly can, and maybe she should do it more often even.

Seth Rogan went beardless for a while in his earlier years, but depending on when you were born you might have never even known a world where he didn’t have facial hair. Until May 2021, at least. That month he shaved his beard off for the show Pam & Tommy and rendered his fans absolutely staggered.

Bryce Dallas Howard is one of Hollywood’s most famous redheads, and it’s all completely natural. Most people would probably agree that a hair color as vibrant as that doesn’t need changing. Yet Howard’s changed it to blonde before, most notably when filming her scenes as Gwen Stacy in Spider-Man 3. And it’s bewildering how different that one change made her look.

Think about it: have you ever seen Star Wars creator George Lucas without his beard? No? He had it even before his film franchise made him a world-famous billionaire, and he still has it now. And yet there was a brief period in the 1980s – after his divorce, notably – when Lucas shaved regularly.

Christian Bale’s known for undergoing dramatic body transformations, but even he seemed like an odd choice to play Dick Cheney in the movie Vice. He’s naturally pretty thin, for a start. Yet he piled on the weight, shaved his head and dyed his eyebrows for the role. It rendered Bale utterly unrecognizable… and saw him pick up an Academy Award nomination.

Her appearance has always been totally OTT – remember that Lady Gaga dress made out of meat? She’s practically a walking work of art and everybody knows it. And yet every so often she does, believe it or not, wear ordinary clothes and no extravagant wig. Would you even recognize that woman if you saw her on the street?

Ariana Grande’s ponytail is a massive part of her look – she referred to it on Twitter as “meant to be” in 2018. It’s so much her trademark that she even had a ponytail when she tied the knot with Dalton Gomez. Yet on rare occasions she does let her hair down.

Billie Eilish’s green-and-black hairstyle quickly became iconic. It’s actually a light brown color without the dye, but Eilish loved the look. She once said on Twitter that she’d had at since she was 13. But no matter how famous it was and how used to it she’d become, Eilish was still willing to try something different. In 2021 she suddenly went blonde.

Tom Selleck’s facial hair might be the most famous in all of Hollywood. So entwined are actor and mustache that Selleck was forbidden from dispensing with it while he was on the show Blue Bloods. Needless to say, pictures of him without the ’tache are pretty rare – but they are out there.

Zooey Deschanel loves her bangs. In 2013 she told Glamour magazine, “You could say that I’m hooked on bangs. Would I ever give them up? I have, and I might again – for a role, perhaps – but I really don’t feel like myself without them.” So whenever you do see Deschanel without bangs, rest assured she’ll be growing them back soon enough.

Charlie Chaplin’s such an iconic figure that it’s easy to forget his “tramp” makeup isn’t what he actually looked like. The white face and the mustache are forever associated with him, but he didn’t go around dressed like that in his everyday life. Yet because he lived before the celebrity culture that dominates the modern age, many today mightn’t have the slightest idea that he was quite a handsome man in reality.