Barcelona star Lionel Messi explains why he bleached his hair

Lionel Messi has finally revealed why he dramatically switched his look and bleached his hair this summer.

The Barcelona star was first spotted with his new hairdo in late July, turning heads with a platinum blonde look after his partner Antonella Roccuzzo posted an Instagram picture of the transformed star.

And after returning to his home country and appearing on Argentine television, Messi addressed the question of why he’d decided to ditch his usual brown locks.

“I made a change to start from zero,” he said.

“I was emerging from a lot of controversies, of things that had happened to me and I said to myself: ‘You’ve got to break this and start again.’”

That he did, and while Messi was only able to speak on Argentine television after returning to his home country for international duty, the controversies he speaks of threatened to end that completely.

The 29-year-old infamously quit international football in the heated aftermath of the Copa America, his third major final defeat in three years.

It led to a lot of criticism from those in Argentina, but the Barca man reversed his decision last month and returned for Thursday night’s win over Uruguay where he scored the winning goal.

Referring to his short-lived retirement, Messi added:

“It was just what I felt in that moment.

“Everything was falling around me.

“I had felt like that was going to be our time, because of the way the team was playing and how we got to the final.

“It was a huge disappointment.”