Joe Buck Confesses Addiction To Hair Plugs, Reveals It Almost Ended Career

Fox sportscaster Joe Buck admits in his new memoir that an addiction to getting hair plugs nearly cut short his broadcasting career.

Joe Buck’s Hair Plug Addiction

In Lucky Bastard: My Life, My Dad, and the Things I’m Not Allowed to Say on TV, Buck opens up a section with a confession: “I, Joseph Francis Buck, became a hair-plug addict.” Buck goes on to explain that he underwent his first procedure back in 1993, and through 2011, had a total of eight hair replacement procedures.

“Broadcasting is a brutal, often unfair business, where looks are valued more than skill. I was worried that if I lost my hair, I would lose my job. O.K., that’s bulls—-. It was vanity. Pure vanity,” Buck writes in his memoir. “I just told myself I was doing it for TV.”

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While getting hair plugs for the eighth time, something went wrong in surgery that caused damage to Buck’s vocal cord. He woke up from anesthesia unable to speak, a broadcaster nightmare worse than losing one’s hair. In order to save face, Buck told everyone that a virus had caused the damage.

“I was lying,” Buck told Sports Illustrated. “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 cord 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.”

Buck’s tough time in 2011, in which he was out for most of the baseball season,also included a battle with depression and the divorce from his high school sweetheart. All of these life struggles inspired him to get to work on his memoir.

“When I started thinking about writing a book, this was the main reason why,” Buck says. “It wasn’t about stories with my Dad. I wanted to detail the time in my life where I had a lot going on and I was stressed, a time when I started to take anti-depressants and was going through a divorce. Then I had this situation with my voice that rocked me to my knees and shook every part of my world. I’m 47 years old now and willing to be vulnerable sharing a story.”

Lucky Bastard: My Life, My Dad, And The Things I’m Not Allowed To Say On TV will be released on Nov. 15.