If we turn on the radio, will “What Makes You Beautiful” start blasting? Niall Horan, 26, just took us back to the heyday of his former band, One Direction, thanks to his noticeably icy locks that surfaced in a screenshot from his Instagram Story on Sept. 20! Niall was undergoing some sort of hair makeover, since he was wrapped in a salon robe from Revlon. However, it’s unclear if he was going blonde blonde (or even silver).
Niall’s hair looked gelled, so there’s a possibility the lightness could’ve been from toner that still needed to be rinsed out. A hairstylist was also giving Niall’s beard scruff a touchup! The final clue was Niall’s cryptic caption, which included the Instagram handle for his pal Olly Murs (the singer opened for 1-D throughout the Up All Night Tour): “You’ve no idea😂😂😂.” Yeah, we really don’t — and neither did fans.
“@NiallOfficial are you blonde again??? what the f**k are you doing with your hair? i need answers, sir,” a fan asked Niall on Twitter, while another fan also demanded an answer: “are you going blonde again REPEAT @NiallOfficial are you going blonde again jddnzjsbsjzb.” A third fan assumed that Niall is indeed blonde again, taking the hair salon photo as just one more bit of good news after fellow 1-D member Liam Payne became Instagram official with model Maya Henry that same day. “First Liam and his gf appreciation post nOW BLONDE!NIALL IS BACK?? I LOVE LIFE,” the fan tweet-shouted.
Niall was still brunette when he filmed the music video for his new track, “Nice To Meet Ya,” with model Georgia Gibbs, 24, in London on Sept. 16. Niall returned to the dark side in early 2017 — in case you didn’t know, Niall had to routinely dye his naturally brown hair to maintain his image as the only blonde 1-D member for years! The upkeep became a pain for Niall, so he stopped the repeat trips to the salon.
“Actually, I do miss the blonde. But I think I just got bored of every month having to go sit there for like three hours [to dye it],” Niall explained on the Zach Sang Show in May 2017. He added, “It’s a pain in the a**, I may as well just leave it the way it is. I started doing it when I was like 12 or 13. So 10 years is a long time putting that crap in your hair.” Well, nearly three years is a good wait time to start layering on the bleach again!