Too close to call? - A contrarian view.

We were going to move on to other areas of toupology today, but we feel that the debate that raged in the previous post is difficult to ignore. Previously, we stated our belief (we attempt to be scientific here and try our best to avoid stating as fact things we don't know beyond a reasonable doubt - though in this case erred on that front on several occasions) that Bill Shatner had had a hair transplant in 2000. But there is a convincing contrarian view - and one that merits closer attention. This view is that in 2000, Bill Shatner, rather than getting plugs, merely switched to a different kind of hairpiece or hair system - the phrasing is unimportant.

One anonymous poster (we really do plead for you to use usernames, which are just as anonymous but merely give you a name so we don't have to call people "anonymous") wrote:

"I am very familiar with the hair piece Mr. Shatner is wearing. It is designed to be worn only once. They call it the "Saturday Night Special" The hair strands are inserted (no knots) into a very fine membrane which requires glue to adhere to the scalp. The membrane is as fine as a fly's wings. Transparent to the eye. Once the hair piece is removed, it must be discarded. Lasts approximately 3-4 weeks."

From a purely juristic sense, we have to ignore the first sentence. But the rest is very interesting.


Here is the main overriding argument for a toupee: There is simply too much hair on Bill Shatner's head to have come from his own head.

This remains a valid argument. In our previous post, we argued that a transplant could overcome that. However, upon closer examination of numerous Shatner images, we noticed that the hair on Bill Shatner's head remains suspiciously thick far more often than it is as thin as this:


The contrarian argument would suggest that the above was a rare ratty toupee.

Yet, there is also something unusual going on at the back - evidence of a patch of slightly longer hair. This would again point to the transplant theory - a harvesting area in which the hair is grown a little longer to hide the patches.


Or could it be both? A third option? Does Bill Shatner wear a toupee that is made from his own hair? This would (kind of) enable him to claim that he doesn't wear a toupee anymore.

We posted this extract as an update in our last post, and are interested in your thoughts:

" 'And no, it isn't a toupée,' [Shatner] says, tugging his hair." See here for more from this interview.

If it is a toup, then Bill Shatner was simply lying point-blank. Or was he parsing words like hair piece with hair system? Yet, so much of Bill Shatner's public and increasingly confident toupee jocularity (for example this and this) has seemed to stem from the post-2000 era in which the toupee was but a thing of the past. Could it all be an illusion? Is it just another toupee? Is Bill Shatner screwing with our minds?


There is another issue too. The times that we know that Bill Shatner is wearing a piece:


Is there really room up there to place a piece over plugs (yes)? That would likely make the scalp invisible.

Truth is, we don't really know - we find arguments from both sides to be persuasive on many points. Yet, we have decided that there is now enough reasonable doubt about the plugs to avoid stating them as being fact.

We do know that post-2000 Bill Shatner still wears a piece. But the real question is and remains, whether he has also had surgery. Like you, we are eager to solve this mystery.

UPDATE: See out Katz story for more info.