In a press release from her long-time manager Jeff Witjas, it has been confirmed today that actress Betty White, best known for her roles on TVs The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Golden Girls, and Hot in Cleveland, is not a natural blonde.
“Betty is a solitary kind of person,” said Witjas. “She likes to relax in her home with her animals, and she rarely likes to discuss the fact, at least in public, that she is actually a brunette. She has been dying her own hair in her home for decades. Betty has often told me she feels it is relaxing and soothing to dye her own hair, peacefully in her home, where she can laugh and enjoy time with her animals. She’s said on more than one occasion that as a blonde, she has had ‘more fun’ in her roles, and in life.”
“Oh, I started dying it ages ago when my color started to fade away to a more whiteish, greyish color,” says White. “I thought to myself, ‘Well Betty, if you can’t have the dark color anymore, might as well try on the blonde for a while,’ and it just kind of stuck. When I played Rose on Girls, the joke about my natural hair color made it into several episodes. I’ve always had a sense of humor about it.”
Early pictures of White with her husband of almost 20 years, Allen Ludden, who died in 1981 of stomach cancer, show White as a sultry brunette with a perfect smile.
Betty White with her late husband Allen Ludden, 1968
White can be seen on cable channel TVLand starring in the sitcom Hot In Cleveland. “Oh Allen loved my dark hair, but later on, as I started to go grey and my hair lightened, he liked the blonde, too. It would be too much work to go back to that dark hair I used to have. Too much to maintain. Besides, I think a new look like that at might age might frighten my animals. They wouldn’t even recognize me!”
(via Empire)
