Karl Stefanovic jokes about his ‘expensive’ mop after hair plug rumours

One rumour has dogged Nine star Karl Stefanovic for at least two years — and the This Time Next Year host seems all too aware of the whispers.

Karl Stefanovic appeared to make a cheeky reference to his much-rumoured hair plugs during Monday night’s episode of This Time Next Year.

The Nine presenter, 45, was speaking to mum-of-two Paula Williams, who had shared with the show her breast reduction journey.

Appearing on the show post-surgery, Williams declared that she wanted to burn one of her old, larger bras — and soon enough, a crew member appeared on stage with a metal bucket and lighter so she could safely do so.

Paula gets ready to burn her bra.

“If you don’t mind, I’m going to step back. Don’t want to burn my hair and stuff. it’s expensive,” quipped Stefanovic, to laughter from the studio audience.

The hair plug rumours were reignited in February this year when Stefanovic’s old Today colleague Richard Reid revealed a juicy bit of goss at camp during his winning stint on Ten’s reality show I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here!

“So I go into the hair room, and this guy looks up and he’s kinda like balding,” Reid said, recalling an anecdote from his time on Today. “It was Karl Stefanovic without his spray-on hair.”

Karl Stefanovic on This Time Next Year.

“And then he went away and got hair plugs,” Reid said. “He had one of those six-week vacations and came back with (hair plugs). And he still used the spray until it filled in.”

But that isn’t the first time there had been rumours about Stefanovic’s hair plugs.

In 2017 the Sydney Morning Herald reported that the Gold Logie winner “bowed to the pressure to maintain his beloved boyish looks and underwent a subtle hair transplant to hide thinning at the front and top of his head a few years ago”.

After winning I’m A Celeb, Reid admitted it was a “big mistake” to drop the Stefanovic bombshell while in the jungle.

“Oh God, that was a big mistake,” Reid groaned when the topic was brought up on The Kyle and Jackie Show. “Apparently, people have thought it but no one has said it! And hey, he rocked a comb-over like nobody’s business, with a little bit of spray in his hair … dark spray.”

He added: “The thing is with Karlos, now that you look back on it, is that he’s the first person to laugh at himself. So, I guess he wasn’t planning on laughing at that, but he’ll cry all the way to the bank, won’t he?”