When a 2018 video of Harry from Love Island’s hair transplant journey surfaced in 2025 [1][2], it was met with mostly positive fan reactions. The public was relieved to see him share his experience so openly and transparently, as his candour reduced stigma around this procedure [3]. Harry Cooksley is one of many footballers to have hair transplants, among the few to confirm this experience. However, the reality TV star hasn’t made any further comments about his past or present hair loss situation since the video was released.
This article will tell you all you need to know about the hair transplant that Harry Cooksley from Love Island had in 2018. You will learn the reasons he needed to get his hair surgically restored at such a young age, how many grafts he needed, his procedure cost and the results he obtained. Moreover, we will walk you through the footballer’s hair journey, from his early years to the present day.
Key takeaways
Harry Edward Cooksley was born in November 1994 in Surrey, England. He is a semi-professional football player, presently a midfielder for his local team, Farnham Town. His achievements on the field have earned him the nickname “The Surrey Zidane”.
However, Harry’s claim to fame stems from his reality TV contribution. He was featured as a contestant on the twelfth season of the popular ITV2 dating show Love Island. In 2025, he reached the show finale and finished as a runner-up alongside his partner Shakira Khan.
Yes, there is undeniable evidence that Harry had a permanent hair transplant in 2018, when he was only 24. A video of the footballer sharing his hair restoration journey surfaced in 2025, as he competed in Love Island. The video was posted to the website of the Turkish clinic where he had his procedure, and reveals that Harry was very satisfied with his procedure and its initial outcome [4][5].
The process was pretty much pain-free. […] I’m absolutely delighted with the outcome.
However, while Harry’s hair looks undeniably better after his surgical hair restoration, there are concerns regarding his young age at the time of the procedure (to be discussed).
Footage from Harry’s younger days as a football player reveals that he has started experiencing male pattern baldness at a young age. In his early 20s, he seemed to have already reached Norwood stage 3-4. This means he had likely been one of the unlucky young men to develop teenage hair loss (read more on the best ways to stop hair loss in teenage guys).
Also known as androgenetic alopecia, male or female pattern baldness occurs when your hair follicles have a higher sensitivity to a male hormone called dihydrotestosterone (DHT). This hormone is produced naturally inside your body. And, in genetically predisposed people, it binds with specific androgen receptors in their hair follicles, causing hair miniaturisation and, eventually, baldness [6].
By the time of his hair transplant, in 2018, Harry was showing the typical signs of moderate androgenetic alopecia. His frontal balding was rather advanced, so he no longer simply had an M-shaped hairline; his alopecia had reached his midscalp. It is difficult to tell if the footballer also had a bald spot on his crown, as there are no clear photos from that time to show the top of his head.
Some influencers wonder whether Harry Cooksley was too young to get surgical hair restoration at 24. And they are right to question this decision. The ISHRS Practice Census 2025 reveals that most men have this procedure between the ages of 30 and 50 [7]. While there is no universally applicable best age to get a hair transplant, most specialists agree that, whenever possible, it is best to wait at least until your late twenties. However, that greatly depends on each patient’s specific situation.
It is uncommon for young men to have a significantly receding hairline at 20. And before age 25, alopecia is not normally advanced enough to warrant surgery. The first signs of hair thinning can often be successfully treated with non-surgical hair restoration treatments. Getting a hair transplant too early, before the hairline has fully matured, will expose the patient to the risk of unnatural-looking results and further native hair loss down the line. And if that happens, there may not be sufficient healthy grafts left in the donor area for a second intervention. Here is how our experienced surgeon, Dr Peter Barron, explains this:
This is where finding a reputable, ethical surgeon is valuable. Some patients primarily think about how they will look one year down the line, however a proper doctor will be thinking about what situation the patient will likely be in 20/30/40 years down the line. Going too aggressive with hairline designs (i.e., low and straight) will give an erroneous-looking result later in life, where some degree of recession is to be expected. Aggressive hair transplants will also eat into the possible donor area reserve of grafts that may be required later in life should they continue to lose hair. The best, often cheapest, investment individuals can make is to slow down hair loss with medication to try and prevent needing further procedures.
However, some young men, such as Harry Cooksley, have extensive hair loss even at a young age. In their case, hair growth medication alone may not be sufficient to provide adequate density. And waiting longer for surgery could mean missing the optimal window for achieving good results. Harry’s alopecia was advanced enough to require intervention, as shown by his appearance and the number of grafts he needed (to be discussed).
All signs point to the fact that Harry’s hair thinning started early in his life. By the time his first interviews as a football player were released, his alopecia was already pronounced, even though he was barely 20 years old. Here is the Love Island contestant’s hair timeline from his early youth until the present day:
In 2015, Harry Cooksley posted a photo of himself as a child on social media (above). While his age at the time the photo was taken was not mentioned, he appears to be a young teenager, about 13-14 years old. The boy in the picture had a full head of thick, blonde, wavy hair. Some cases of early-onset androgenetic alopecia develop as early as around this age. However, his hairline seemed straight and youthful, indicating that his hair loss had not started yet.
While there are no public photos of his later teenage years, it is safe to assume that he developed the first signs of male pattern baldness a few years before his 20th birthday. That’s because 2014 images of him on the football field show Harry with an already significantly affected frontal area and serious temple hair loss.
By the time he decided to have a hair transplant, Harry Cooksley’s alopecia had progressed even further. Media appearances from 2016-2017 show substantial temple and frontal balding, which the footballer tried to mask by wearing his hair short with a high fade (one of the best hairstyles for men with thin hair).
Photos taken during a late 2017 match (above), soon before his 2018 procedure, show the footballer’s midscalp had also become affected by alopecia. Only a small tuft of hair was left from what used to be his hairline. Harry never commented on his hair loss, nor did he mention whether he tried any medication before getting surgical hair restoration. But if he did, they probably weren’t working, given the extent of his hair shedding.
Just one year after his hair transplant, in 2019, photos of Harry Cooksley (above) show an entirely different appearance. He is sporting a head full of curly hair, which appears to cover his frontal area perfectly. While it is more difficult to restore textured hair surgically, curly hair types provide a better illusion of density.
And while slightly longer curls can sometimes obscure an uneven hairline, this wasn’t Harry’s case. 2024 photos (above) indicate that he had a successful, natural-looking hair transplant that gave him a straight, youthful hairline to be envied. Moreover, it seems to have maintained perfectly for the first 6 years post-op and beyond.
During the past years, Harry from Love Island seems to have engaged in very good hair transplant maintenance. The footballer has grown out his hair, and his hairline still looks impeccable, as his 2025-2026 photos reveal (above). Moreover, there is no sign of further native hair loss. He still has a full head of hair that looks like he was born with it. His temples are fully covered, and his natural texture conceals any sign of surgical intervention.
According to the clinic where the procedure took place, Harry had an FUE sapphire hair transplant. This means that he had a follicular unit extraction (FUE) procedure, performed with a sapphire blade, for smaller, cleaner incisions and faster wound healing [8].
The main advantages of FUE surgery, compared to FUT (follicular unit transplantation), are the faster recovery time and the absence of visible scarring. FUT involves harvesting an entire strip of hair from the back of your head, cutting it up into grafts and implanting them in your transplant area. The resulting wound requires stitches and leaves a fine, linear scar on your donor area. It also makes healing slightly slower and more painful. FUE, however, involves extracting each hair follicle individually from the donor area. While this takes longer to perform, the resulting micropunctures heal faster and leave virtually no visible scars.
Since Harry from Love Island is a minor celebrity, likely hoping for further media exposure, his appearance is an important asset for his career in the public eye. So avoiding scarring was likely an important factor in his choice to get FUE surgery over FUT.
Harry from Love Island got a 3000-graft hair transplant to fix his hairline and midscalp. This information was revealed by the clinic where his procedure was performed. While the footballer’s hair loss was considerable for his age, some question whether 3000 grafts may be excessive for the amount of coverage he needed.
Of course, the number of required grafts varies from one patient to another, and only a surgeon who has consulted them can assess this accurately. However, Turkish hair transplant clinics have a reputation for quoting a higher number of grafts for the same coverage compared to those in the UK.
According to our hair transplant graft calculator, someone with Harry’s age, hair loss and hair type requires, on average, between 1620 and 2250 grafts. See below some examples of hair transplants performed by Wimpole Clinic surgeons on patients with hair characteristics and alopecia stage similar to Harry’s. While the results are comparable, the number of grafts harvested and transplanted is significantly lower. This can reduce the risk of hair transplant overharvesting and leave enough healthy follicles in the donor area in case a second procedure is required later in life.
That is not to imply that the surgeon who performed Harry’s hair transplant was wrong in his assessment of the number of grafts he needed. Nobody can assess a patient’s hair restoration requirements just by looking at their public photos. However, when the patient is very young, like Harry was, it is generally best to get a second opinion when being recommended an over 2500-graft hair transplant. Here, at the Wimpole Clinic, we offer a free, no-strings-attached hair transplant consultation so you can be absolutely sure that only the necessary grafts are being harvested.
Neither Harry nor the clinic disclosed the price of this procedure. However, according to media reports, the footballer has likely paid upwards of £5,600 for his transplant (the exact amount remaining unknown [9]. Since he used a well-reputed clinic, the cost per graft seems to be higher than the Turkish average (over £1.9, compared to £0.55). However, the hair transplant cost likely included his accommodation and possibly other optional services.
Had Harry had his surgical hair restoration done in the UK, 3000 grafts would have amounted to approximately £9750, since the cost per graft is higher here. However, the lower hair transplant costs in Turkey are not always worth it. In the UK, his procedure may have required fewer grafts, lowering the overall price. Moreover, he likely would not have needed accommodation, and the travel expenses would have been significantly lower.
The main factors that influence hair transplant costs, regardless of the country where the procedure takes place, are the following:
Moreover, since Harry was really young at the time of his surgery, our transparent clinic manager, Derek Bailey, warns that he may also need to consider future procedure costs:
For younger patients in their 20s who may require multiple transplants over a lifetime, it is important to approach long-term cost planning by considering the overall cost of multiple procedures. Key decisions early on, such as preserving grafts by choosing a reputable clinic and selecting a conservative hairline design, can affect total lifetime cost. […]So this it is very important to be realistic with your approach. We are all young, and we all think that will never happen, and then it does.
Hair transplants are safe and simple procedures, with very low complication rates. While they have a few normal and temporary side effects (e.g. pain, itching, swelling, redness, etc.), more severe adverse reactions are highly uncommon and often associated with black market procedures performed by untrained technicians.
Turkey is infamous for its problematic procedures – most of the botched plastic surgeries repaired by UK surgeons are performed there. However, Harry chose an authorised clinic. So his more serious hair transplant risks were likely the same as for any other patient:
Fortunately, as far as the media knows, Harry Cooksley has not experienced any of these serious hair transplant side effects, and his procedure was successful. However, another risk is posed by his young age at the time of the surgery. Should his alopecia worsen later in life, his native hair may fall out around his transplant area. This would require a second procedure to fix. And since 3000 grafts have been harvested from his donor area already, he may not have sufficient left for another hair transplant down the line.
If your hair is falling out and Harry’s story has given you hope of regaining your youthful appearance, you have come to the right place. All you have to do is book a free hair transplant consultation with one of our highly skilled surgeons. They will assess and diagnose your alopecia, and if you are eligible for surgical hair restoration, they will make personalised recommendations for optimal, natural-looking results.
Here, at the award-winning Wimpole Clinic, we have built our 50-year legacy as hair transplant industry leaders on surgical excellence and 5-star patient care. See our surgeon’s results for yourself in our before-and-after hair transplant gallery.
If you are curious to see what other celebrities’ hair transplant results look like or want to know who else may have had one, check out these famous people’s hair journeys:
If you would like to find out even more about Harry from Love Island’s hair transplant, see the answers to these frequently asked questions:
Yes, there are other Love Island contestants who have confirmed getting hair transplants at some point in life [10]. One such example is Ben Holbrough, one of Harry’s 2025 competitors, who filmed a before-and-after video of his hair restoration surgery at age 22. Others include Ouzy See (2023 participant), Jake Cornish (2021 participant), Connor Durman (2020 participant), Jake Fincham (2018 winner), Alex Beatie (2017 participant), and Dom Lever (2017 participant). And since female hair transplants are just as effective and natural-looking, there is even a female contestant who had surgical hair restoration: Rosie Williams (2018 participant).
Harry Cooksley commented on the video he made right after his surgery that he was delighted with the outcome. However, he made no further public comments about his final hair transplant results. Clues that he is likely satisfied with his new hair growth can be found on his Instagram page. Before his surgery, he was wearing a cap in almost all of his photos; after 2018, he seems to display his hairline proudly.
Since he had his surgery at a young age, Harry from Love Island may need to get a second procedure later down the line, if his native (non-transplanted) hair continues to fall out. However, consistently using hair growth medications, such as Minoxidil or Finasteride, can help prevent or at least delay this situation.
According to his video and the clinic’s statements, Harry’s 3000-graft hair transplant took about 6-7 hours to complete. This is normal for a FUE procedure with this number of grafts, as this technique is more painstaking (each hair follicle is removed from the donor area individually).
Wimpole Clinic Services:
Hair Transplants, Beard Transplants & Eyebrow Transplants.
Talk to a specialist
