Karl Stefanovic shows off his new black dye job on the Today show

Karl Stefanovic is said to have spent a whopping $55,000 on hair plugs over the years.

And now the 45-year-old TV host has shown off his new black dye job on the Today show. 

As seen on the breakfast program on Friday, Karl’s mane looks remarkably different than before, appearing both darker and thicker.    

It seems the veteran journalist was wanting a change this year, swapping his brown locks for a darker hue after making a triumphant return to the show. 

Last year, it was reported by Woman’s Day that Karl is said to have spent up to a whopping $55,000 on hair plugs. 

In September last year, Karl joked about his locks on This Time Next Year and said his hair was ‘expensive.’

At the time, he stepped away from a woman who was burning her bra on stage, saying: ‘Don’t want to burn my hair and stuff. Do you know what I mean? It’s expensive!’

In January this year meanwhile, Karl slammed his rival and former colleague Richard Reid and called him a ‘tosser,’ after he revealed on I’m A Celebrity that Karl had a hair transplant. 

Karl told Kyle and Jackie O at the time: ‘When he said it, I had to turn off that show and I just thought, “You are just a tosser.” Richard Reid is a tosser of the highest order!’  

Just minutes later, Richard spoke to Kyle and Jackie O via telephone to offer his side of the story.

He claimed that he and Karl didn’t get along during their seven years as colleagues on Channel Nine’s Today show.

He also defended his hair transplant revelation by saying he had ‘kept Karl’s name in the headlines… when he didn’t have a job’. 

Brushing off Karl’s insult, he added with a laugh: ‘At least I’m a tosser of the highest order! Does that mean I get a crown or a medal?’

When Kyle Sandilands asked directly if Richard had a problem with his ex-colleague, he replied sarcastically: ‘I like Karl just fine. I like him just fine in small doses.

The pair’s feud went public in February 2019 when Richard – who hosted a daily Hollywood gossip segment on Today from 2008 until 2015 – let slip on I’m a Celebrity that Karl had undergone a hair transplant years earlier. 

Recalling the moment he discovered Karl’s hair loss, he said: ‘So I go into the hair room, and this guy looks up and he’s kind of balding… It was Karl Stefanovic without his spray-on hair!

‘And then he went away and got hair plugs. He had one of those six-week vacations and came back with [makes gesture for hair plugs]. And he still used the spray-on until it filled in!’

Of course, it wasn’t the first time Karl’s hair transplant had made headlines.

In 2017, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that he’d undergone the procedure because he was feeling ‘pressure’ to look younger.

The publication claimed he’d had a ‘subtle hair transplant’ a few years earlier to cover thinning at the front and top.