Bowen Yang Dyed His Hair Blond — It Doesn't Mean What You Think

The Saturday Night Live actor will have a new look this week when the show returns.

Mikelle Street

Mikelle is the former editorial director of digital for PrideMedia, guiding digital editorial and social across Out, The Advocate, Pride.com, Out Traveler, and Plus. After starting as a freelancer for Out in 2013, he joined the staff as Senior Editor working across print and digital in 2018. In early 2021 he became Out's digital director, marking a pivot to content that centered queer and trans stories and figures, exclusively. In September 2021, he was promoted to editorial director of PrideMedia. He has written cover stories on Ricky Martin, Miss Fame, Nyle DiMarco, Jeremy O. Harris, Law Roach, and Symone.

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Mikelle Street

January 10 2022 6:17 AM EST

November 04 2024 9:36 AM EST

MikelleStreet

I saw Bowen Yang with blond hair, so I dyed my hair blond too.

We all know how this works: If a gay man dyes his hair blonde (especially platinum) he's probably gone through some sort of catastrophic event in his life. 13 times out of 10 it's a breakup. So, color us distraught when Saturday Night Live rising star and La Culturistas co-host Bowen Yang debuted a new do on Instagram.

"Normative queer semiotics would suggest that I am ________ but they would be wrong," Yang said, addressing the elephant in the room. "Bleach and color by [Yu Nakata.]" Seems like everything is just fine and he's just doing a little experimenting.

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Yang is on hiatus from Saturday Night Live currently after making himself an invaluable part of the cast. The 31-year-old made history as the first cast member on Saturday Night Live to be nominated for an Emmy after two seasons on the show last year. And for good reason: he has consistently been a part of some of the funniest sketches of the last few years either as talent or as a writer.

Saturday Night Live will return this week on January 15 with Out100 cover star and recent Golden Globe winner Ariana DeBose as host. DeBose won the Globe for her performance as Anita in Steven Spielberg's West Side Story. She will be joined by Roddy Ricch as the musical guest.