Colton Haynes, is that you?
The 32-year-old actor, uh, raised eyebrows after debuting a new bare-faced look on social media June 30. At first, it seemed like fairly standard Insta fare: A close-up, a car selfie, he even threw up a peace sign. “Hey besties!” he wrote to his 6.5 million followers. “I had an epic day! Bye besties!”
But it wasn’t long before fans realized something was missing: “Where are ur eyebrows?” one asked in the comments section. Added another, “His eyebrows said bye bestie!”
And some followers were fans of the change. “Here for this tbh,” actress Molly Burnett wrote underneath the post. “Livinggg,” added All My Children‘s Leven Rambin.
However, Haynes later revealed the look was only temporary. When RuPaul’s Drag Race‘s Gigi Goode reacted with a series of exclamation marks, Haynes replied, “Still don’t look half as goode as you do without brows but luckily it’s just prosthetic makeup ha!”
It’s been a busy time for Haynes. Along with modeling work, the Arrow star just appeared in Triumph along with Terrence Howard and RJ Mitte and announced in January he’s set to star in a new comedy project with Eliot Glazer called I Run Hot.
MICHAEL TRAN/AFP via Getty Images, InstagramBut Haynes didn’t always feel accepted by the industry. In a June Instagram post, he shared an old photo of himself posing for XY Magazine and explained why he “never posted this picture before.”
“I spent a big part of my career trying to erase it from the internet while I was still in the closet,” he wrote. “Partly because so many ppl in Hollywood told me I would never work as an openly gay actor, but part of it was because I was incredibly ashamed. It made me sad to see these pictures I had taken as a teenage model…before I was placed with voice & movement coaches to straighten me up for the cameras…before I learned to see my queerness as a liability. I was jealous of him. The boy in these pictures was so open, so free. He had to be taught that it wasn’t ok to be who he was.”
Now, Haynes is a proud member of the LGBTQIA+ community. “Being gay is worth celebrating,” he continued in the Pride Month post. “I wish I’d figured that out sooner, but I’m so glad I know it now. To everyone in the LGBTQIA+ community, I hope you celebrate yourselves this month & always, exactly as you are.”
