Here’s Why Jacob Elordi’s New Beard Is So Divisive, According to Master Barbers

Thanksgiving weekend is meant to be a time of rest and joyful communion—or, at least, a time to fight with your relatives over politics and occasionally scream at the college sophomores playing football on TV. Over this year’s holiday break, however, the internet was gifted a whole new thing to fight and scream about: Jacob Elordi’s beard.

The normally clean-cut, chisel-chinned Priscilla star debuted his scruff on Friday at the Marrakech Film Festival, where he sat on the jury alongside the distinguished likes of Luca Guadagnino and Andrew Garfield. Elordi was last seen publicly in October with a rather wispy, peach-fuzzy mustache, which still felt very much in line with the teen heartthrobs we’ve become accustomed to seeing him play in projects like Saltburn and Euphoria. (There’s some speculation that Elordi grew the whiskers for his role on the latter, whose long-awaited third season reportedly involves a time jump.) That made the sudden appearance of his bountiful beard—paired with a shaggier-than-normal ’do, a jaunty Bottega Veneta tuxedo, and a classic Rolex Day-Date—feel all the more staggering. Needless to say, Elordi’s fans were split about the look.

“Finally, living proof that not all men look better with a beard,” wrote one X user. “Jacob Elordi went from a 9 to a 3 with a beard,” chirped another. But there were also plenty of beard-os defending the growth: “Jacob Elordi with a beard is going to be a problem for me,” admitted GQ contributor Sophia Benoit, alongside a chorus of supporters who favorably compared the 27-year-old Aussie to late-’60s Paul McCartney and early-’80s Kurt Russell. (If you ask me, he actually looks most like ’70s Pacino in Serpico.)

Elordi at Milan Fashion Week in September with a mere fuzzy upper lip…

Arnold Jerocki/Getty Images

…and again on Friday in Marrakesh boasting a fulsome, fearsome beard.

Marc Piasecki/Getty Images

What do experts in the beard field think about Elordi’s hirsute lightning rod?

“I can see why people are split on it, because it ages him significantly,” said Cassondra Kurtz, the owner and master barber of the New York barbershop Beyond the Beard. “Especially if he has a younger fan base, the beard might launch him more into the stratosphere of looking like a dad—or at least like an older brother.” Kurtz, like others online, theorized that Elordi might have grown it to play a more mature role. “A lot of my clients grow out their facial hair because they have thinner, longer faces that generally look younger, and they want to widen things out and [gain] more of a presence.”

Alex Berry, master barber at Toronto’s Garrison’s Barbershop, really liked Elordi’s look—if for somewhat self-serving reasons. “That’s actually how I’ve been wearing my beard lately as well,” Berry said. “It’s more of a natural growth.” Unlike the more manicured beards generally seen in Hollywood—kept trimmer and cleaner along the mustache and cheeks with more fullness in the chin—Berry said Elordi’s bushier facial hair looked like it had all grown in together at one length, a move often employed by guys like Christian Bale and Tom Hardy. “The most uncommon thing about [Elordi’s] beard is that the mustache is so heavy and prominent. I actually really like it, but I think that’s what’s probably pissing people off.”