Chris Appleton, the celebrity hairstylist who married The White Lotus star Lukas Gage in a whirlwind Vegas wedding, has posted shirtless before-and-after photos. He’s 30 pounds lighter, and the difference is hard to miss.
The weight came off on Strictly Come Dancing, the British show Dancing With the Stars is based on. Chris lasted two live weeks there, long enough to cha-cha to the Baywatch theme in costume, before he became the first celebrity sent home.
It caps a very public few years for the 43-year-old, who came out at 26 after years as a married dad of two. Much later came Lukas, a divorce filed six months after the wedding, and a memoir that opens on the darkest night of his life. Strictly, he told the London Standard, gave him “a whole new lease of life.” Judging by the photos, his body got one too.
First In, First Out
In the UK, Strictly is a Saturday night institution. This year’s Movie Week peaked at 5.6 million viewers, according to the BBC.
Chris was paired with professional dancer Amy Dowden. Their first-week tango scored 16 from the judges. For Movie Week they danced a cha-cha to “I’ll Be Ready,” the theme from Baywatch, costume and all, and got 17.
Judges Motsi Mabuse and Anton Du Beke both said he’d come a long way since week one. It didn’t save him. Once the judges’ scores and the public vote were combined, Chris and Amy landed in the bottom two with actress Jaime Winstone and her partner Carlos Gu.
On the October 4 results show, Mabuse, head judge Shirley Ballas and Du Beke all voted to keep Winstone and Gu. Craig Revel Horwood said he would have done the same.
For Amy it was a painful repeat. Last year she was also the first pro out, with businessman Thomas Skinner. “Obviously I’m heartbroken, it seems to be my luck the last few years,” she said on the show.
30 Pounds Down
Now Chris has shared what all those rehearsals did to his body. His caption was short: “30 pounds down, before and after. I saw dancing as entertainment, but the physical side is something else.”
In the “before” shot he’s broader and bulkier. In the “after,” he’s visibly leaner, especially through the face and shoulders. The post also includes a photo of a scale reading 232.5 pounds.
He didn’t say whether diet or extra gym time played a part. His point was that the dancing itself was far harder on his body than he expected.
“It Was Never About Winning”
Chris doesn’t sound bitter about going out first. On the red carpet at the Attitude Awards last week, he said he never signed up to win. He wanted to find out whether he could get out there live on a Saturday night, and he did.
“It was never about winning,” he said. What he wanted was the challenge of being dropped into something he had no idea how to do.
He called it one of the best things he’s ever done, and said what he’ll keep is his friendship with Amy. She clearly feels the same. After their exit, she said she’d come away with “a friend for life.”
That’s the 30 pounds. How a married dad from Leicester came out, became one of Hollywood’s busiest hairstylists and then married Lukas in Las Vegas is a much longer story.
More About Chris: From Leicester To Hollywood
Chris grew up in Leicester, England, and started styling hair as a teenager. He eventually moved to Los Angeles and became one of the most in-demand hairstylists in Hollywood.
He’s credited with Kim Kardashian’s glossy “glass hair” and Ariana Grande’s signature high ponytail, and his clients have included Jennifer Lopez, Sofia Vergara and Katy Perry. He’s also the global creative director of hair care brand Color Wow.
When he joined Strictly this summer, he called it a homecoming. He also admitted he knew his way around a salon floor a lot better than a dance floor.
Coming Out At 26
Before the Hollywood years, Chris was a married dad in England. He and his then-wife, Katie Katon, had two children, son Billy and daughter Kitty-Blu. He came out as gay at 26.
He has written that for years he hid behind an image, “playing it safe, playing it straight.” On Jay Shetty’s On Purpose podcast in 2025, he said the hardest part of coming out was telling his kids. He also described how the shame he felt about his sexuality led to a suicide attempt, and how surviving it helped him finally accept who he is.
These days, Kitty-Blu is often by his side on the red carpet.
If you’re struggling, you can call or text 988, the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, in the US.
The Lukas Gage Chapter
In 2023, Chris made headlines with a whirlwind romance with Lukas, who also starred in You. They married in Las Vegas that April. Kim did the honors as officiant, and Shania Twain performed.
About six months later, Chris filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences.
He told Shetty he doesn’t regret moving fast. “I would rather love and fall than to never feel anything at all,” he said.
A Memoir, And Something New On The Way
In January, Chris published his memoir, Your Roots Don’t Define You. He told Grazia USA he threw out an earlier, glossier version in favor of something more honest, and opened the book with one of the darkest nights of his life. He also admitted that his move to America, which he’d long described as a career decision, was partly him running away.
Put next to all that, Strictly makes more sense. At 43, after decades of mastering one craft, he chose to be a complete beginner again on live national TV. After the elimination, he said he’d seen himself “in a way I’ve never seen myself.”
He isn’t slowing down, either. He told the Standard he has a launch coming that’s “very close to my heart,” one that will show people a lot more of him and his world. He wouldn’t say what it is yet.
Whatever it turns out to be, he’s walking into it 30 pounds lighter.