ABC Carrie Ann Inaba.
Carrie Ann Inaba is known for her stunning looks, but her appearance has changed a lot since she first started on ”Dancing with the Stars.”
The longtime judge on the celebrity ballroom competition has rocked a variety of hairstyles throughout her 30 seasons on the show, but there is a big reason for her ever-changing hair looks. Inaba suffers from several autoimmune disorders, and in August 2020, she told fans that the medications she was taking had affected the health of her hair but that, unlike “most celebrities,” she didn’t wear wigs. A few months later, Inaba began regularly wearing wigs on DWTS—and she explained why.
“I [had] to take a medication that could cause hair loss so we planned a season of mostly wigs just in case,” she wrote on Instagram in November 2020, per Parade. “When I took the medications, I had too many negative side effects so I had to stop it for a moment but we were already ready with a plan… so we stuck to it.”
At the time, Inaba told People that she planned to have more “fun” and take her style to the “next level” for the live ballroom show. “I got to experiment with my looks in ways I never have and it gave me a creative outlet that I haven’t had in a while,” she said at the time.
Carrie Ann Inaba Inaba Looks Dramatically Different in Pre-DWTS Pics
GettyCarrie Ann Inaba.
Inaba was 37-years-old when “Dancing With the Stars” premiered in 2005. She will celebrate her 55th birthday in January 2023, per IMDb. Inaba has barely aged, but her looks have definitely changed over the years.
In a pre-DWTS photo taken in 2002, Inaba wore a striped dress as she attended the grand opening of Chef Charlie Palmer’s catering venue “Astra West” at the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood, California. In another pic taken in 2005, Inaba arrived at ABC’s Television Critics Association party with her hair pulled back.
GettyCarrie Ann Inaba.
In photos taken in 2005, she wore a metallic dress to the VH1 Big in ’05 Awards. Inaba wore jeans and a sleeveless red top to the premiere of the movie “Thumbsucker” that year.
GettyCarrie Ann Inaba in 2005.
Carrie Ann Inaba Previously Posted a Pic From Her Days as a Pop Star in Tokyo
In April 2022, Inaba shared a throwback photo from 1986. In the pic, the future DWTS star had bangs and shorter hair as she posed wearing an embellished jacket, complete with 1980s shoulder pads. Inaba revealed that the photo was taken in Tokyo in 1986 when she was a teen pop star.
“This is where it all started,” she captioned the pic. “Tokyo 1986. I was a recording artist/pop star in Japan. Signed to Virgin Records. This was my debut performance on the hit show, “YORU NO HIT STUDIO DX”.”
“This show was an incredible show that featured international musical artists and Japanese musical artists every week. It was like the Grammy’s but every week,” she wrote.
Inaba revealed that the experience on the music show introduced her to the live “form of television” that she still loves to this day.
During her heyday as a young pop singer, Inaba released several hits, including “Party Girl” and “Be Your Girl.” By 1990, she was a dancing Fly Girl on the Fox variety show “In Living Color.”
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