Bill Clinton haircut controversy

Official White House photo of President Bill Clinton

The Bill Clinton haircut controversy, usually known as "Hairgate", was a 1993 controversy surrounding a haircut given to US President Bill Clinton on board Air Force One.

On May 18, 1993, the Belgian-American hairstylist Cristophe Schatteman gave Clinton the $200 haircut while the plane was idling with engines running on the tarmac at Los Angeles Airport. Two runways were shut down for an hour. At the time, much of the US media reported that air traffic into and out of the airport was affected. However, subsequent investigations using FAA records showed that no commercial airliners suffered delays, although an unscheduled air taxi had a delay of about two minutes.

The initial adverse publicity may have been due to the discomfort caused by the delay to the journalists on board, resulting in front page news in many media markets, including The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the Boston Globe. The subsequent correction garnered much less space; The New York Times, for example, ran no correction. Nigel Hamilton notes that every newspaper in America seized on the story, and that it was quickly dubbed "the most expensive haircut in history".

One of the two Air Force One planes at Peterson Air Force Base in 1999.

The Washington Post mentioned "the most famous haircut since Samson's" in front page articles nine times over a six-week period. An ombudsman's article in the Washington Post later stated that the haircut cost less than $150 and that the haircut did not cause air traffic delays but the paper did not retract the articles. The story was widely reported, joked about and followed. A Pew Research survey from mid-1993 reported that 18% of respondents followed the story "very closely".

See also

• Presidency of Bill Clinton
• Public image of Bill Clinton