The celebrity hairstylist opens up to L&rsquo;OFFICIEL about starting over, and his debut book, Your Roots Don&rsquo;t Define You.&nbsp;

&ldquo;I made a career out of making people feel great, but I just never looked in the mirror myself,&rdquo; says Chris Appleton. The celebrity hairstylist, 42, is Zooming in from New York City, the first stop of his five-day book tour. It&rsquo;s launch day for his debut, <a href="https://chrisappleton1.wpenginepowered.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Your Roots Don&rsquo;t Define You</a>, and he&rsquo;s excited to share his story. &ldquo;When I finally decided to look in the mirror and see myself for the first time, it was really empowering,&rdquo; he told L&rsquo;OFFICIEL. &ldquo;But once you see yourself, you can&rsquo;t unsee yourself. I wanted to share that journey in the book.&rdquo;&nbsp;
With a clientele that includes Kim Kardashian, Jennifer Lopez, and Christina Aguilera, Appleton knows a thing or two about how to make a look, well, iconic. It wouldn&rsquo;t be an exaggeration to say he&rsquo;s earned his place among today&rsquo;s most recognizable, high-profile hairstylists. After all, he&rsquo;s behind some of the internet&rsquo;s most viral beauty moments. There&rsquo;s Kardashian&rsquo;s slick, water-droplet wet look at the 2019 Met Gala, as if she&rsquo;d just emerged from the ocean. Then there&rsquo;s Dua Lipa&rsquo;s Donatella Versace-inspired platinum blonde at the 2022 Grammys. The list goes on. Suffice it to say, dramatic hair transformations are his signature.&nbsp;
But Appleton knows&mdash;maintains, really&mdash;that hair holds more power than just a look, nor is it a mere fashion statement. It&rsquo;s a part of your identity, a way to express yourself. That belief is precisely why he sees hair as a catalyst, the first visible step toward personal growth&mdash;a &ldquo;gateway,&rdquo; as he calls it.
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s not just about getting new hair. It&rsquo;s about transforming your life from the inside because that&rsquo;s the superpower,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Your image tells a story about who you are. So even when people say they don&rsquo;t care about the way they look or their hair, you&rsquo;re also telling a story with that. It reflects into the rest of your life and what you&rsquo;re trying to do or who you&rsquo;re trying to be.&rdquo;&nbsp;
Beyond self-expression, Appleton sees it as a form of agency. &ldquo;When I work with cancer patients, they&rsquo;re not thinking about fashion. They&rsquo;re thinking about how they&rsquo;re going to get through cancer because they&rsquo;ve lost their hair, they&rsquo;ve lost their privacy, and they get through looking in the mirror and looking ill and having an image portrayed to the world that they&rsquo;re sick when they&rsquo;re not ready to deal with it," he says.&nbsp;
&ldquo;And that&rsquo;s why I work on wigs, to help people get their hair back and get them the confidence to be able to go out there and face that cancer.&ldquo;

In the same way he has mastered hair and all its technicalities, Appleton has also learned how to rebuild his own life&mdash;and his book lays out that process, no matter how long it takes, which, for the record, he confidently says is never too late.&nbsp;
That&rsquo;s because, like many coming-out stories, Appleton&rsquo;s wasn&rsquo;t easy. He grew up in Leicester, a small town in England, about a two-hour train ride away from London. He knew from a young age that he wanted to do hair: his first &ldquo;client&rdquo; was his mother when he was nine years old. He worked at salons while still in school, where he was teased and bullied for it&mdash;which, despite its challenges, ultimately didn&rsquo;t stop his pursuits. Slowly, in his twenties, he moved to London to build his portfolio, dreaming that his work would one day land on the cover of Vogue. By his late twenties, his career was taking off.&nbsp;
At the same time, he had the idealized, picture-perfect straight life that he felt the world expected of him: a longtime girlfriend, Kate, with whom he shares two children, and a house. That was until he began to confront his sexuality, first coming out to Kate, and eventually to his children, Billy and Kitty-Blu, then ten and eight. Overwhelmed by the weight of the life he felt he was walking away from, he left their home and attempted to take his own life&mdash;saved after Kate made an emergency call.&nbsp;
Difficult as it was, Appleton reveals all the details of how he began living his truth in Your Roots Don&rsquo;t Define You. And he&rsquo;s not holding back. &ldquo;I just think it&rsquo;s really important to share that journey to make people feel less alone,&rdquo; he says.&nbsp;&nbsp;
Ahead, read our full interview with Appleton about stepping out of his comfort zone, starting over, and the inspiration for his book.&nbsp;

L&rsquo;OFFICIEL: You framed your book as a self-help guide rather than a traditional memoir. What was the inspiration behind that?&nbsp;
CHRIS APPLETON: I think I just realized that there are so many people who are lost, unseen, or unheard. In my experiences working with celebrities, clients in the salon, models on a runway, or cancer patients who have lost their hair, there was a common thing that people really want to feel seen. I wrote the book to help people achieve that&mdash;help them feel seen when maybe they look in the mirror, and they just don&rsquo;t necessarily feel aligned with the reflection. I think a lot of people feel that way. And a lot of the time, people have just inherited these ideas of who they are from childhood, society, or maybe being picked on at school. So the book is just a really empowering way to make people truly transform their lives by finding that alignment with where you are and where you want to go.&nbsp;
L&rsquo;O: You said you had a completely different version of the book and re-wrote Your Roots Don&rsquo;t Define You from scratch. What made you decide to start over?&nbsp;&nbsp;
CA: I had a very different idea of what the book should be. It was way more polished and way more what people probably expect from a celebrity hairstylist. The original book was just more of what people already know about me from social media, which is glitz and glamour in Hollywood. But I felt like the book needed to have some vulnerability. Because I was like, &ldquo;Why would people listen to me?&rdquo; So I decided to go through it raw and talk about my darkest moments, the moments I transformed my life and changed it for the better, to enable other people to feel like they can do the same. And I think it was important to share something that scratched underneath the surface of that to truly help people heal, help them get to the best versions of themselves.&nbsp;
L&rsquo;O: How long did it take you to write it?&nbsp;
CA: I started it about a year and a half ago. And I did it relatively fast. I mean, it&rsquo;s what I know. It&rsquo;s who I am.&nbsp;

L&rsquo;O: You frequently reference how people can be limited by their roots, both literal, like hair, and figurative, like their upbringing, home, family, and neighborhood. Why did you feel most called to that theme?&nbsp;
CA: I realized that every person who sat in my chair carried these preconceived ideas or these images of themselves that were given to them once by someone. It was like a conversation of your parents saying, &ldquo;you&rsquo;re the shy one,&rdquo; or &ldquo;you need bangs because you have a big forehead,&rdquo; or &ldquo;your sister&rsquo;s the confident one,&rdquo; or &ldquo;you&rsquo;re sheepish.&rdquo; It carries through all our lives, even in professions. &ldquo;You should be a doctor,&rdquo; you should do this or that, whereas they&rsquo;ve always actually wanted to act and just never had the opportunity to pursue that. It goes into so many different things. It affects the hairstyle you choose, but it also affects the relationships you go into, your financial decisions, and even friendship groups. This book is really just for anyone who&rsquo;s ever asked, &ldquo;Is this it?&rdquo; They&rsquo;ve looked in the mirror and said, &ldquo;Is this it? Is this me? Is this who I truly am?&rdquo; Whether that&rsquo;s a job, a relationship, a friendship, or even just the haircut you&rsquo;ve had your whole life and never had the confidence to change. It&rsquo;s for someone who wants to move forward from where they are to the next stage, but doesn&rsquo;t really know how to start. And it uses a lot of different fun celebrity conversations and humor, but also a lot of emotions that other people who have felt that way have experienced. It will make you feel less alone. It bounds your superpower, whatever that is.&nbsp;
L&rsquo;O: Your book deals with a lot of complex themes that people often grapple with privately. Yet the moment when you detail the night you came out to your children is especially powerful. How does it feel to share that experience with the world?&nbsp;
CA: It was once such a deep secret because it was the darkest night of my life. It was the night I tried to end my life. But I want other people to feel less alone. I know what living a life that isn&rsquo;t truly yours can do to you. After all those years of trying to be something I was told to be, what society told me to be, and who to be. I think it nearly killed me because I wasn&rsquo;t authentically being myself. That night, after I didn&rsquo;t die, I realized I couldn&rsquo;t hate myself more than I did. I couldn&rsquo;t be any meaner or say worse things to myself. And I couldn&rsquo;t try to change who I am any more than I already have. And I think it was very empowering to get to a point where I could stop, look in the mirror, and say, &ldquo;Okay, this is who I am. I don&rsquo;t know what&rsquo;s next, but we&rsquo;ll start with this. We&rsquo;ll start with just acknowledging that this is who I am, and where I&rsquo;ve been is a good place, and I need to get to a better place.&rdquo; I just think it&rsquo;s really important to share that journey to make people feel less alone.&nbsp;

L&rsquo;O: What was it like for you to write about it at all?&nbsp;
CA: In the moment, it felt like that movie with Scrooge, where he goes back and sees old memories of himself. It&rsquo;s like you&rsquo;re reliving those memories. So it was hard. It was hard. And even re-reading it for the audiobook was incredibly raw. There were also sections in the book where I talked about that voice that always knows. When something doesn&rsquo;t feel right, it usually isn&rsquo;t. And reflecting on those sad times in my life where friendships or relationships have ended, it was incredibly hard for me. But it&rsquo;s called reflection for a reason&mdash;because there&rsquo;s more to your mirror than meets the eye. And once you see yourself, it&rsquo;s the start of the process of discovery.&nbsp;
L&rsquo;O: If there&rsquo;s one thing you hope your readers will take away from this book, what would it be?&nbsp;
CA: That you can transform your life and create your comeback at any stage. It&rsquo;s never too late. A lot of people over the age of 20 think that it&rsquo;s too late to change their lives. It really never is. If Kris Jenner&rsquo;s anyone to go by, then she&rsquo;s out there proving it&mdash;that it&rsquo;s never too late to make your comeback and be fully confident with that.&nbsp;

Chris Appleton Talks Coming Out and The Transformative Power of Hair

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