Why Did Felicity Cut Her Hair? Unpacking the Iconic TV Moment and Its Aftermath
The actress recalled strangers approaching her on the street and telling her she was "so pretty" before she cut her hair.
Published May 13 2025, 11:38 a.m. ET
When it comes to unforgettable television moments, few can compete with a haircut. Not just any haircut — we’re talking about the haircut, the one that turned Keri Russell’s character, Felicity Porter, from a curly-haired college romantic into the centerpiece of a pop culture controversy.
If you were watching Felicity in the late ’90s, you remember where you were when it happened. If you weren’t? Well, even over 25 years later, in 2025, people are still asking the question: Why did Felicity cut her hair?
In 1999, going into the show's second season, Felicity made a dramatic change. After being dumped by Ben, the boy she moved cross-country for, she showed up on-screen with a fresh pixie cut, and TV audiences did not take it well.
Viewers were stunned. Media outlets ran with the story. Some fans even blamed the show’s subsequent dip in ratings on the haircut. The question is: Why did she do it? Keep reading for the real story behind the controversial haircut.
Why did Felicity cut her hair? Turns out, it started as a joke at 2 a.m.
Keri herself addressed the infamous chop during a Felicity reunion panel in 2018 at the ATX Television Festival, co-hosted by Entertainment Weekly and Hulu. Her response was refreshingly honest.
“It’s such a typical college-girl story,” Keri said. “The guy breaks up with her, and then she goes and cuts her hair, and it’s really bad.” It’s that kind of emotionally impulsive, post-breakup reaction that felt authentic to the character, even if it shook up the fan base.
Now, here’s where the story took an unexpected turn. According to Keri, the haircut wasn’t even part of some major scripted arc. It started during a late night on Season 1, when the crew was packing up.
“The way it all totally went down, was they were wrapping up the first season … and the hair people were putting away everything they had into boxes, and there was a little boy’s wig,” she explained.
“We put it on me at like 2 in the morning as a joke … and we took a Polaroid, and over the summer we thought it’d be really funny to send to J.J. Abrams and Matt Reeves and say, ‘I cut my hair — hope you like it.’ Totally as a joke.”
What happened next, however, changed TV history. J.J., one of the show’s creators, called Keri to ask if she’d actually gone through with the haircut. Not long after, the writers had woven the transformation into the storyline, making it a symbol of Felicity’s post-breakup evolution — awkward, impulsive, and sincere.
Viewers freaked out, but the show stayed true to its heart.
Even though the change fit the character’s emotional journey, the backlash was real. Ratings dipped. Magazines debated whether the haircut had “ruined” the show. In online forums and fan spaces like Reddit, people still bring it up, discussing how jarring it felt or how “betrayed” they were by the change.
Others, however, defend it. As one Redditor noted, “It made Felicity feel real. Real people don’t always look perfect. They make messy choices.”
Another user on Reddit recalled how their own college breakup led to a similarly regrettable dye job. That’s the thing — the haircut became a kind of cultural mirror, reminding viewers how identity and heartbreak collide.
Keri admitted she loved the decision because she had a friend from college who did the exact same thing after getting her heart broken. She added that her friend proceeded to hate her hair for the next two years. So, for Keri, Felicity's decision to cut her hair was relatable and just made sense for the character.
Two decades later, this moment still cuts deep.
In 2025, more than two and a half decades after Felicity premiered, people are still talking about the haircut. In 2023, TIME reflected on how the moment “shifted the way we think about hair and identity in television.” It’s not just about a look — it was a metaphor, whether intended or not, for what it means to grow up and fall apart at the same time.
Today, it’s hard to imagine a single hairstyle carrying that much cultural weight. In the 1990s, however, it was a completely different story. Felicity’s haircut wasn’t just a character choice. It was a test of how much control audiences expected to have over their favorite TV characters.
At the end of the day, Felicity cut her hair because she was heartbroken and trying to reclaim herself. While the decision originated from a joke, this was a college girl making a very relatable and very human mistake.