- Many celebrities dye their hair for a variety of reasons.
- Some just prefer a shade that’s different than their natural hue, while others alter their locks for roles on TV shows or movies.
- Stars like Sophie Turner and KJ Apa dyed their hair specifically for roles on “Game of Thrones” and “Riverdale,” respectively.
- Visit Insider’s homepage for more stories.
Some celebrities have rocked certain hair colors for years that it’s hard to remember what their natural color is.
Gwen Stefani dyes her hair weekly to keep it platinum and Mandy Moore hasn’t gone back to her natural blonde in years. Other stars, like “Game of Thrones” alum Sophie Turner and “Riverdale’s” KJ Apa, have altered their hair hues specifically for roles.
Here are 32 celebrities and their natural hair color.
Anjelica Oswald contributed to a previous version of this article.
Emma Stone is known for her red hair, but the actress sometimes goes back to her natural blonde.
She's known for transforming her hair often, but the actress told Refinery29 that red is her favorite.
"My hair grows out blonde, but my coloring is similar to that of a redhead," she said. "So... I really like having red hair. I'm a natural blonde, but I really like the red."
Kristen Stewart often rocks brown locks, she's a natural dirty blonde.
Stewart is no stranger to changing her hair, from shaving it off to dyeing it different colors.
Scarlett Johansson is known for her blonde hair, but she's naturally a bit darker brown.
Johansson has shown off a number of looks over the years, but has most recently rocked short hair.
When she first cut her hair short back in 2014, she told Refinery29, "I think I just got tired of wearing a ponytail all the time. I [was] always stuffing it under a wig, so I just cut it off. Everybody kept saying, 'Don't cut your hair! You might hate it!' But, then I thought, 'Why am I letting other people tell me what to do?'"
Karlie Kloss went blonde in 2014 and hasn't looked back to her brunette days.
Her colorist explained to Allure back in 2014 that Kloss wanted a natural look.
"We talked about how she was a towhead as a child and how she didn't want traditional hair color - single process and highlights - that would force her back to the salon every four weeks for a root touch-up," Alexis Unno said.
"With her schedule, that's impossible," she continued. "Plus, she wanted something more subtle, like the color her hair would turn after spending time at the beach. She also wanted to keep the cool-girl factor of embracing her natural hair color - it was very important to Karlie that it looked natural."
Leighton Meester had to dye her blonde hair brown for "Gossip Girl."
Josh Schwartz, co-creator of "Gossip Girl," told The Hollywood Reporter that they made her dye her hair when she auditioned.
"Leighton was a blonde when she came in to read, but Blake was the blonde, so we asked her to color her hair," he said. "A risky move on her part in the middle of pilot season, but she did a sink-rinse dye job to audition as a brunette."
Sophie Turner dyed her natural blonde hair a reddish for her role as Sansa Stark on "Game of Thrones."
She told Vogue that changing her hair color was initially a difficult experience.
"It was difficult, especially being in an all-girls school," she said. "There seemed to be a bad connotation with red or ginger hair, so I was nervous, but it was nice to transform my look for my first role. Plus, it spurred my appreciation for how hair can change one's look and personality."
She added that her hair color affects how she feels and what she wears.
"I wouldn't wear bright clothes because I wanted the [red] hair to speak for itself, but now as a blonde, I wear whatever I want," she said. "It affects everything from clothing to how I walk and talk and hold myself. It kind of felt like coming home, there was a comfort in it for sure."
"Game of Thrones" fans know Emilia Clarke as the platinum-haired Daenerys Targaryen, but the actress is a natural brunette, though she does sometimes add some blonde ombré and highlights to her hair.
To achieve her look on "Game of Thrones," the actress wore a bald cap and a mesh cap before the wig was put on. Kevin Alexander, the man in charge of getting Clarke's hair right, told Time that there were four "character wigs" for Daenerys.
As Cersei on "Game of Thrones," Lena Headey rocked golden locks, but she's naturally a dark brunette.
Because her hair is dark, Headey wore a bald cap under the blonde wig she wore on the show. She did actually cut her hair short, like Cersei, in real life.
Sofia Vergara may rock the brunette look, but she's a natural blonde.
She first went brunette to land roles.
"I'm a natural blonde, but when I started acting, I would go to auditions, and they didn't know where to put me because I was voluptuous and had the accent - but I had blonde hair," she told Self magazine in 2010. "The moment I dyed my hair dark, it was, 'Oh, she's the hot Latin girl.'"
Lady Gaga is another artist who chooses to wear her hair blonde, sometimes with wigs, instead of her natural brown.
She has rocked every sort of color out there. During a 2013 concert, BBC reported that Gaga took off her wig and said that she had used "wigs and make-up" to "cover up the pain."
She continued: "When I didn't feel strong enough to be me, I created someone else. And it worked."
"Riverdale" star KJ Apa dyes his dark brown hair red to play Archie Andrews.
Apa goes to the salon every two weeks to get his hair bleached and dyed to maintain the color while filming. They also have to dye his eyebrows to match.
"It's not my favorite thing to do, but obviously I've got to do it because the roots keep coming up and my hair grows really fast," he told Vulture. "I'm sitting there for at least two-and-a-half hours, so I'm on my iPad and I read some scripts and stuff. I keep myself entertained."
Amy Adams has had red hair for what seems like forever, but the actress is really blonde.
Adams has said that trading in her strawberry blonde hair for red helped her get roles.
"Based on roles that I was getting, called in for, people were responding to certain types of characters with me as a blonde and the minute I went red, it was quirky and fun instead of flirtatious and dumb," she said in a New York Times TimesTalk.
Olivia Wilde often sports brown hair, but she's another natural blonde.
Wilde has embraced a lighter brown shade more recently.
She told Bang! Showbiz that she doesn't feel blonde.
"I'm a natural blonde, but I feel like a brunette," she said. "I feel people treat me now how I should be treated."
When Katy Perry first made it big, she rocked black hair and has since changed her hair, but her real shade is a light blonde-brown mix.
She told Glamour: "I'm naturally the most boring dishwater squirrel brown. So I've been playing with colors since I was 15...Colored hair is such a huge accessory that you don't even need to add extra stuff."
Jessica Simpson has been blonde for years, but the singer is a natural brunette.
Simpson often bleaches and highlights her hair to get her desired color.
Anna Paquin has generally had blonde hair since her role as Sookie on "True Blood," but her natural color is a lot darker.
She had to bleach her hair for the role.
Rachel McAdams got her break as the blonde Regina George in "Mean Girls," but she is a natural brunette.
McAdams' colorist Craig Moir told Allure that blonde is her "go-to color."
Some people mistook Eddie Redmayne for a redhead after he had to dye his hair for "Pillars of the Earth," but he is brunette.
Redmayne is actually color-blind though and can't see his own hair color.
In over 20 years, Gwen Stefani's hair hasn't been anything but platinum, but she's actually a natural brunette.
Stefani's colorist, Danilo Dixon, told Refinery29 that he dyes her hair every week with a bleach-free formula he developed just for the star.
"Gwen's an Italian girl with wavy brown hair - if you look at the video for Cool, we did her in her natural shade, maybe a little darker - so I developed a high lift formula for her," he said.
Christina Hendricks first went red when she was 10, even though she's naturally blonde.
The actress told Marie Claire that she wanted red hair because she "was dying to be Anne of Green Gables."
Deborah Ann Woll rocked red hair on "True Blood," but she's a natural blonde.
She told Elle that she first dyed her hair when she was 14
"As a fair-skinned blonde, I disappeared into the background," she said. "I've always been a loner, so I suppose dyeing my hair red was a way to say, 'I'm here, I exist, I'm a human being and you can't just push me aside.' I'm also a fan of old movies, and was very into Rita Hayworth at the time."
Mandy Moore was blonde when she started her career, but switched to brown hair for "A Walk to Remember," and it stuck.
She told Entertainment Weekly that the hair helped her transform.
"It came at a time in my life when I was only seen from the pop music landscape and through that lens," Moore said. "There was a real significance to coloring my hair. As silly as it sounds, there was a real significance in the way that people saw me, but also in the way that I carried myself and that I saw myself."
She added: "It was the last little piece of the puzzle I think in terms of getting into the character."
Laura Prepon has rocked black and blonde hair, but she's a natural redhead like her "That '70s Show" character.
She made sure people knew she was a natural redhead in a 2012 piece for Us Weekly where she revealed 25 things fans didn't know about the actress.
OK, fans of Cole Sprouse won't find his natural blonde as a surprise, but for those who only know him on "Riverdale," the actor's dark hair isn't his real color.
Sprouse dyes his hair about every two weeks to get into his Jughead character on The CW show.
He told Glamour: "I'm fitting into it a little more. I miss the blond, but people tell my [twin, Dylan] brother and I apart more easily now, so that helps."
"Pitch Perfect" star Anna Camp rocks blonde hair, but she's a natural brunette (though this photo is her in a wig).
The actress told WWD that she hasn't seen her natural brown hair since the seventh grade, though she has posted a throwback photo on her Instagram showing it off.
"It might be nice to go back and see what that feels like," she told WWD. "I keep waiting for a job for that, but they keep wanting me blonde."
"Pitch Perfect" star Brittany Snow is naturally a darker mix of blonde and brown, but she has rocked every shade from platinum blonde to red.
Brittany Snow told Yahoo that her least favorite color was the red she had for "Pitch Perfect 2."
"They really wanted me to be dark red, and I wanted to be lighter like I was in the first movie, but they didn't want that," she said. "But I rocked some light red for a year, after it faded."
She told the Zoe Report that she feels most herself with strawberry blonde hair.
"It's fun to change it up - that's the cool thing about hair, is that you get to," she added.
Ashley Tisdale rose to fame as the blonde Sharpay in "High School Musical," but her natural color is darker.
Ashley Tisdale has gone through numerous colors over the years, but does lean more towards her natural color.
"My natural hair is dark, so I do tend to like it more dark just because it's easier to manage," she told Us Weekly. "I like being blonde, too."
Allison Williams was blonde for some time, but she's naturally a brunette.
"Back to my roots. Blonde was fun, but I've got to say that I'm happy to be back," Allison Williams captioned a photo of her brunette hair in 2017.
Williams did admit that the maintenance for blonde hair is "exhausting" on "The Late Late Show With James Corden."
Robin Lord Taylor dyed his hair jet black to play Oswald Cobblepot on "Gotham," but he's a natural blonde.
He told Glamour that he dyed it every two weeks to keep it up.
"When my roots come in, it starts to look like my hair is levitating off of my head," he said. Because it's so light underneath, I'm like, 'Is my hair falling out? Oh no, I'm just blond.'"
Shakira dyed her hair blonde for years, but the singer's natural hair is a dark black.
In 2014, she told Glam Belleza Latina that she preferred her blonde hair.
"I like that blond hair gives a lot of light onstage and makes my face pop a little more," she said. "The dark hair made me look more goth. And besides, how many blond Latinas are there in the world? Hello!"
She said she takes care of it by using "serums with natural oils" and "sulfate-free shampoo."
The difference in her hair can be seen in her early music videos.
Ariel Winter dyed her hair dark brown for "Modern Family," but she's naturally blonde.
"I'm pretty adventurous with my hair, I'll try a lot of things," Winter told People. "Alex doesn't change up her look that much. I don't experiment with it [on the show] so it's fun for me to do it outside of work."
The actress also described her natural color as "dirty blonde."
"I have dirty blonde hair and really dark eyebrows and dark eyes," she told People. "I've dyed it so many times in the past so really the most important thing for me with my hair now is trying to keep my hair healthy."
Bebe Rexha dyes her short hair platinum blonde, but she's naturally a brunette.
In a 2016 interview with "The Weekend Throwdown with Jagger," the singer said that the process to dye her hair blonde took 13 hours.
"It was just so dark, the color wasn't sticking," she said. "They had to keep reapplying the bleach."
Rexha also told fans that she uses products from SheaMoisture to keep her hair healthy.