Walking Dead star Chandler Riggs cut off his infamous mullet just days after his character faced a gruesome fate on the hit AMC series.
Riggs posted a photo of himself sporting a fresh cut while wearing a black V-neck tee and captioned it, “new hair who dis.” The photo has received more than 7,500 comments and 103,000 likes on Twitter. He later joked, “I feel so exposed like a naked mole rat or something.”
new hair who dis pic.twitter.com/fHq22R5I3C
— chandler riggs (@chandlerriggs) December 16, 2017
The actor, whose character (SPOILER ALERT!) revealed he’d been bitten by a zombie on the Sunday, December 10, mid-season finale, had worn the long, shaggy hairstyle since beginning his journey as the beloved Carl Grimes.
Riggs, 18, has come to terms with his character’s fate, telling The Hollywood Reporter the bombshell was “story-related” and important for the future of the show.
“I was planning on going to college until I found out. I found out when I was doing rehearsals for episode 6 back in June. It was quite the shocker for me, Andy [Lincoln, who plays his father] and everyone because I don’t think anyone saw it coming,” he told the outlet on December 10. “It’s definitely not a bad thing because it has been awesome being on the show but now I get to go and do a lot of other stuff that I haven’t gotten to do before.”
While the legendary zombie killer seems content with his fate, one person who isn’t happy about it is his father. As previously reported, William Riggs wrote on Facebook, “Watching [executive producer Scott] Gimple fire my son 2 weeks before his 18th birthday after telling him they wanted him for the next 3 years was disappointing. I never trusted Gimple or AMC but Chandler did. I know how much it hurt him. But we do absolutely know how lucky we have been to be a part of it all and appreciate all the love from fans all these years!” The post has since been deleted.
A Carl Grimes parody account reposted the photo of Riggs with his new look and tweeted, “My luxurious mane is gone. Does that count as a character death too?? If so, it’s the saddest death so far. #TheWalkingDead.”
The Walking Dead returns to AMC Sunday, February 25, at 9 p.m. ET.
