Howie Mandel’s hair explained: When did he go bald?

Howie Mandel is best known these days as a judge on the ultra-popular family friendly shows America’s Got Talent and Deal or No Deal, but he has a long and storied career in show business dating all the way back to the late 1970s, when he would open for stars like Diana Ross and David Letterman.

Perhaps the craziest part? He used to have a head full of hair. There’s been a lot of speculation about when Mandel went bald over the years and whether he shaves his head regularly or not. There’s not neccessarily a straightforward answer because Mandel is an admitted germaphobe and he also suffers from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

So when did he go bald? Let’s do a little background first.

How did Howie Mandel get famous?

Mandel started doing stand up comedy on a dare. He went up at YukYuk’s comedy club in Toronto and figured out how to make people laugh despite being new.

“The point was that I wasn’t a comedian, and therein lies the joke. Then when I first realized that they were looking at me and waiting for something, I got uncomfortable. That fear is what I shared […] that discomfort is what they were laughing at.”

This led to the birth of his famous rubber glove bit, where he puts one (he carries them because of germs) over his head and blows it up like a balloon. Coincidentally, that was the bit that blew up his career and helped him become a household name.

“I was breathing and the fingers were going up, the audience was laughing and Boom! I had an act,” he said.

The truth is Mandel used to have a fantastic head of hair, and a very stylish one at that. He recently shared a photo from the old days on his Instagram page.

Is Howie Mandel really bald or does he shave his head?

Mandel’s baldness is pretty much his signature look but obviously he wasn’t always like that. So does he shave his head or is he bald? According to a Mandel, he shaves it.

“As much as I shave my face, I shave my head,” he said in a video with his son about the topic.

Does Howie Mandel shave his head because of OCD?

In 2006, Mandel appeared on the Howard Stern Show and revealed that he struggled with OCD and that the disorder made him such a germaphobe that he refuses to even shake people’s hands and instead will only fist bump them.

The head shaving thing is just another avenue to that cleanness, he said.