Andre Agassi has admitted for the first time that he once wore a wig. The former tennis star said he was so distracted that his wig would fall off during a Grand Slam final that he ended up losing the match.
Agassi made the admission, in his new autobiography, Open. He stated: “Every morning I would get up and find another piece of my identity on the pillow, in the wash basin, down the plughole. ”I asked myself: you want to wear a toupee? On the tennis court? I answered myself; what else could I do?”
He first tried the wig in the French Open in 1990. This was the first time he reached a Grand Slam final.
“Then a fiasco happened,” he said. “The evening before the match I stood under the shower and felt my wig suddenly fall apart.”Probably I used the wrong hair rinse. I panicked and called my brother Philly into the room.
“It’s a total disaster!” I said to him. He looked at it and said he could clamp it with hair clips. It took 20 clips. “Do you think it will hold?” I asked. “Just don’t move so much,” he said.
“Of course I could have played without my hairpiece, but what would all the journalists have written if they knew that all the time I was really wearing a wig?”During the warming-up training before play I prayed. Not for victory, but that my hairpiece would not fall off.
“With each leap, I imagine it falling into the sand. I imagine millions of spectators move closer to their TV sets, their eyes widening and, in dozens of dialects and languages, ask how Andre Agassi’s hair has fallen from his head.
It was his wife to be, Brooke Shields, who advised him to shave his head and get rid of the wig.
“She said I should shave my head,” he said. “It was like suggesting I should have all my teeth out. Nevertheless, I thought for a few days about it, about the agonies it caused me, the hypocrisy and lies.”
Agassi admits that he found it strange when he first looked at the man in the mirror.
“A stranger stood before me in the mirror and smiled,” he said. My wig was like a chain and the ridiculously long strands in three colors like an iron ball which hung on it.”
The fact that Agassi wore a wig won’t upset any of his fans and after a while we all got used to the new shaven look. However, if his wig had of fallen off during one of his matches, it’s hard to know what would have happened to his reputation and resultant career.
