Legendary Fox Sports announcer Joe Buck has revealed that his addiction to hair plugs, yes hair plugs, nearly cost him his career in 2011.
Buck took time off in 2011 due to a "virus" that affected his vocal cords but as it turns out the root of the problem was actually caused by complications from an elective hair replacement procedure. During that year, he awoke from his eighth procedure and was unable to talk due to nerve damage that had occurred.
Buck reveals this information in his upcoming memoir "Lucky Bastard: My Life, My Dad, And The Things I’m Not Allowed To Say On TV," in which he also confesses that he was addicted to the plugs.
According to Buck, he first underwent replacement treatment in 1993 out of fear that if he lost his hair he'd lose his job. By the time 2011 rolled around he was on his eighth replacement procedure and completely hooked.
He told Sports Illustrated's Richard Deitsch:
“I was lying. I think people bend the truth all the time, unfortunately. It was really for self-preservation and ego for me. As I look back, I gave partial truths. Where I lied was when I said the reason why. People would ask, ‘Why is your vocal chord paralyzed?’ I said it was a virus. I didn’t say it was an elective procedure to add hair to the front of my head. It was embarrassing. There’s an embarrassing element to that. Any surgery done to improve one’s looks is not really something someone wants to talk about. So it’s very cathartic to get this out. There are a lot of people across the country, for as silly as this sounds, who obsess about hair loss. I would tell myself I needed to look younger, I needed to have thicker hair, I don’t want to look older than I am. The truth of it is that it was an ego thing, whether I was on TV or not.”
Check out the full interview here.