It's getting windy: The Trump wig theory that refuses to die down

Over the years, Trump has had many hair moments, but none has been replayed as often as his 2018 encounter with the wind. As he climbed the stairs of Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews, a powerful gust caught the back of his carefully arranged hair and lifted it almost vertically. Video showed the strands being swept upward, exposing part of his scalp. The footage exploded across social media after it surfaced several days later, prompting countless jokes and renewed fascination with exactly how his elaborate hairstyle was constructed.

Trump's reputation for memorable encounters with the wind eventually produced something even stranger: a manipulated video purporting to show his hair flying completely off. The footage originated with a comedy segment and digitally altered genuine video of Trump speaking to reporters before boarding Air Force One in November 2019. Re-edited versions subsequently circulated online with claims suggesting the president's “wig” had actually been blown away by an aircraft engine. It hadn't. Fact-checkers traced the footage back to the digitally altered comedy clip.

Years passed, administrations changed, but the wind-versus-Trump’s-hair storyline survived. In May 2025, another clip showing Trump’s hair being whipped around as he prepared to board Air Force One circulated widely online. The president’s blond strands spun and lifted in the wind, prompting yet another round of attention for a hairstyle that had already outlasted countless outdoor appearances.

In October 2025, Trump was unhappy with a TIME magazine cover for an unusual reason: he thought the photograph had practically erased his famous hair. “They ‘disappeared’ my hair,” Trump complained on Truth Social, adding that something above his head looked like a tiny “floating crown.” He described the picture as “really weird” and “super bad,” and noted that he had never liked photographs taken from underneath.

On August 5, during his visit to the Red Rock Casino Resort in Las Vegas, Trump appeared with noticeably fuller-looking hair, once again reigniting the internet’s long-running speculation that he might be wearing a wig. Trump has directly confronted questions about whether his famous hair is real before. In 2015, he invited a woman onstage at a South Carolina event to inspect it after declaring, “It’s my hair! I swear!” A year later, he allowed Jimmy Fallon to vigorously ruffle his hair on 'The Tonight Show.' And amid the latest speculation, hair professionals have pushed back on the wig theory, suggesting that styling techniques could explain the dramatically different appearance.