Kelly Ripa, Kevin Hart, and Other Celebs Showing Gray Hair Amid Coronavirus Quarantine

Daniel S. Levine

03/28/2020 12:56 am EDT

As television and film productions screech to a halt due to the coronavirus outbreak, celebrities have been forced to do their own hair and makeup at home. Some are even letting their hair go grey without having access to professional hair coloring treatments. In recent days, Kevin Hart, Kelly Ripa and others have jokingly shown off their grey streaks.

Throughout the country, business at hair salons has been almost nonexistent as many cities and states order them to be closed. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends people stay at least six feet away from each other to slow the spread of the virus, and that is hard to do when you have to cut hair. It has left many local salons searching for new ways to keep afloat. One way is to encourage customers to get gift cards to use in the future, a tactic being used by other businesses.

"Clients are prebooking and paying in advance," Steve Sleeper, the executive director of the Professional Beauty Association, told USA Today. "There's a real awareness, especially for smaller salons and independent stylists, how difficult it's going to be for them. These are personal connections and they want to help them."

Celebrity hairstylist Laura Polko told Entertainment Tonight people should not try to bleach hair yourself. She also suggested not trying to do anything disruptive to your hair if you are so desperate that you decide to cut it yourself.

"The best thing to do is to keep it as simple and not too disruptive on what path you've been on with your haircuts and your hairstylist at home," she said. "I would section hair probably ear to ear in the front, ear to ear on the other side, and then split the back section in two and kind of, you know, use a mirror if you can and get the very, very ends going straight across in the back, you want to look down, tilt your head down a little bit and nip it at the bottom. And then you're going to pull it all in front and match it up."

Here are some of the celebrities who have let their true hair color show during the coronavirus pandemic.

Kelly Ripa

(Photo: Kelly Ripa/@kellyripa)

On Sunday, Live With Kelly and Ryan host Kelly Ripa, 49, showed off her grey roots on her Instagram Story. "Root watch week one," she wrote, noting hoe long she has gone without a visit to a professional colorist.

Later, Ripa showed herself getting Botox from Dr. Robert Anolik. She said the doctor was keeping away as far as he could.

"These are great CDC rules and I appreciate them," she said in an Instagram Story post. "Having said that, in this time, we can notice that there's been a lot of worrying. You can see it's written all over my face, but Dr. Anolik decided to be brave today and come into work to treat my acute botox deficiency syndrome."

Kevin Hart

Comedian Kevin Hart, 40, showed off his grey hair in an Instagram video he shared with fans. He knew fans would point out his salt-and-pepper hair, and admitted to coloring it when working. "I have always had a s- load of grey hair... I was just a frequent dyer. I'm not working right now so I said F- IT," the actor wrote.

Kyle Richards

Actress Kyle Richards, who stars on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, shared a video of herself using a box of Clairol hair dye to color her hair herself. The 51-year-old said she started getting grey hair at 25.

"I'm going to color my roots. I have some gray root," Richards said. "I inherited getting gray hair early. My dad was completely gray by the time he was 40. I started getting gray hairs when I was 25, probably because I worry so much. I do it myself quite often."

Marie Osmond

The Talk co-host Marie Osmond, 60, told Entertainment Tonight she has needed FaceTime to connect with the show's hairstylist for tips on how to fix her hair.

"I called her up and I said, 'How does it look?' and she goes, 'You're right, you really can't do hair, can you?'" Osmond joked. "She talked me through this. She made me pin this all forward in a ponytail, and she said, 'Now you pull it over your grays and then they can't see it.'"

"She told me what to do," the entertainment icon explained. "It's fun because there's all kinds of ways you can hide things and do things that saves time and money, and right now when people can't go ... I do know how to color my hair. I just don't have any of the coloring things here so she's sending me some."

Tamera Mowry

The Real co-host Tamera Mowry, 41, showed off her grey roots in a March 1 Instagram post. "Hello grays. No getting my hair done during #socialdistancing, and I'm okay with it," she wrote in the caption.

Tia Mowry

Mowry's twin sister Tia also shared a hint of grey hair in her an Instagram post on Wednesday.

"You know what? I'm doing pretty good," Tia told Entertainment Tonight Wednesday. "Look, my nails are done and that's OK... But I just think - I had seen a video of I don't know who it was, but some officials in Italy or something like that - and they were talking about being appalled at people who were ordered to stay home, going to the hair salon. And it's like, guys, come on. That's not important. It's about putting things into perspective right now. What is important? Your health. Other people's health. Your well-being. Your mental health. Like, let's focus on that. Let's not focus on if I have hair, you know, growing - and my eyebrows are no longer nicely coiffed and shaped. Come on!"

Photo credit: Getty Images

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