He procedure, due to be carried out at the Crown Clinic in Manchester, takes up to 8 hours and is performed under local anaesthetic. Best, as quoted by the Mail, explained: “These procedures have completely changed my life. They have given me so much more confidence and enabled me to wear my hair just the way I like. The fact that I still have my hair helps me to get film roles.”

And he’s not alone. Wayne Rooney, Phil Tufnell and James Nesbitt are just three other celebrities who have recently had hair transplants. Similar to Best, Rooney has gone under the knife twice in the past three years. With so many celebrities going public about their transplants, some men – and indeed, some women – might find themselves seriously tempted to go down the surgery route too.

affects 6.5 million men in the UK and is caused by over-sensitivity to the hormone dihydrotestosterone (DHT), which causes hair follicles to shrink and stop functioning. Because of the role played by testosterone, a popular myth abounds that baldness in males is an indication of virility. Of course, this is not a great comfort to those men made miserable by their hair loss on a daily basis.

Celebrity hairdresser James Brown coped with his burgeoning bald spot by wearing hats 24/7, and found that when going through an airport – a common activity for someone with his jetsetting lifestyle – he would panic about having to reveal his hair loss: “Those minutes before going through security and taking my hat off, they were torture for me”. Like many others in his position, Brown decided he had had enough and sought out professional help, settling on the Dublin-based hair transplant clinic Hair Restoration Blackrock (HRBR). After a successful procedure, Brown went public about how delighted he was with the results of his transplant, calling it “incredible” – tempting, no doubt, scores of men to seek out the same treatment.