Fans Shocked After Learning Eleven’s Season 4 Buzzcut Was Actually a Wig
Stranger Things fans just got hit with a surprise twist about our girl Eleven — and honestly, it couldn’t have come at a wilder time, with the fifth and final season right around the corner.
Most of us first fell into the spooky little world of Hawkins, Indiana back in 2016 when the show dropped on Netflix and basically took over the internet. The very first episode, Chapter One: The Vanishing of Will Byers, throws us straight into November 6, 1983, where poor Will gets yanked into the creepy, dangerous alternate dimension we now know as the Upside Down.
And yeah… still gives me chills.
What most people forget is that the whole gateway to this nightmare realm was accidentally opened by Eleven — the quiet, shaved-head kid with insane telekinetic powers and telepathic abilities, thanks to those super messed-up experiments at Hawkins Lab. After Will disappears, his friends go searching and end up stumbling across Eleven as she escapes the lab, setting off one of the best friendship-plus-secret-crush stories in TV history.
The show mixes horror, mystery, sci-fi, and that relatable coming-of-age chaos we all pretend we didn’t go through. That’s honestly why it works: monsters + teen awkwardness = perfection.
Now the long-awaited Season 5 finally lands on Wednesday, November 26 at 8 p.m., giving us a look at Hawkins three years after the madness of Season 4 (which still feels like yesterday, but also not?).
Back in Season 1, when we first meet Eleven — played by Millie Bobby Brown — she’s rocking a fully shaved head. Not exactly a style choice, but more because the scientists needed constant access to her scalp to attach all their creepy devices during their experiments. Kind of wild to rewatch now and realize just how intense her backstory really was.
After Eleven breaks free from the lab and all that trauma, she finally lets her hair grow out and starts figuring out who she actually is outside those cold lab walls. It’s kinda sweet watching her stumble through that whole self-discovery era — honestly, very “me in my teens” energy.
But then season four hits, and things get dark again. Since she lost her powers in the previous season, she ends up returning to Dr. Brenner — yep, the same guy she calls “Papa,” even though he’s basically the walking red flag of Hawkins. And of course, in true Brenner fashion, he forces her to shave her head again, hoping it’ll jump-start her supernatural abilities. Total violation, zero chill.
Here’s the part that blew fans’ minds: even though Millie Bobby Brown actually shaved her head for real back in 2016 for season one, she didn’t go fully bald again in season four. Turns out that dramatic buzzcut? Pure movie magic.
She wore this insanely realistic, high-quality hairpiece that honestly fooled everyone — and with today’s HD streaming, 4K resolution, and everyone pausing Netflix every three seconds to analyze scenes, that’s saying something.
A behind-the-scenes clip from her makeup trailer ended up on TikTok, showing how the whole transformation went down. Millie’s sitting there fidgeting with something in her lap while the styling team slicks her real hair back super tight. Then they pop on the buzzcut-style hairpiece, and boom — she looks like Eleven from season one all over again.
It’s kinda wild how a bit of prosthetics and skilled makeup work can pull off what looks like an actual shaved head. Hollywood really said: special effects budget > scissors.
Once the TikTok clip went viral, the comments section basically turned into a mini Stranger Things fan meltdown. People were shook. A ton of viewers instantly assumed that if Millie wore a wig in season four, then she must’ve been wearing one back in season one too.
One user screamed in all caps, “This WHOLE TIME I THOUGHT SHE WAS SHAVING HER HAIR OFF.”
Another dropped: “IT WAS FAKEEE???” — like they needed a moment to process their entire childhood.
Someone else joked, “omg younger me would be so upset finding out it was fake,” which honestly… same. That reveal felt like finding out your favorite magic trick was just fishing wire.
And then another fan kept it real: “The wig was fire. I’m glad she didn’t have to shave her head again.”
Honestly, the special effects and styling team deserve a raise — that wig had premium Hollywood budget written all over it.
Luckily, a few people jumped in to clear things up. One commenter explained: “In season one, she really was bald but she wanted a wig in s4.”
Another broke it down even more: “For y’all who didn’t know it was a wig: the first time she had a real buzz cut, but in season four Millie couldn’t cut her hair that short again because of other roles. She said it herself.”
Meanwhile, over on Reddit — because Reddit always has a deeper take — one fan pointed out something way more meaningful. They said Brenner shaving Eleven’s head without her consent wasn’t just creepy, it was symbolic. A metaphor for him stripping away her autonomy all over again, especially after she’d finally started connecting her identity to her hair and claiming a little independence.
Honestly? That’s a pretty sharp observation. Stranger Things may have monsters and supernatural horror, but the real villain has always been control — and how Eleven keeps fighting to take her power back.
