'What Was I Thinking?!': Kaley Cuoco Regretted This Bold Haircut For One Big Reason

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Working up the nerve to cut your hair is hard, but regretting a haircut is harder. That was exactly the case for Kaley Cuoco, whose head-turning hair transformation featured one surprisingly short 'do. In Season 8 of "The Big Bang Theory," Cuoco, who played Penny, appeared onscreen with a drastic pixie cut — a striking departure from her character's long blond hair.

"What was I thinking?!" the actor said in the book "The Big Bang Theory: The Definitive, Inside Story of the Epic Hit Series," according to Glamour. "I just f***ing cut my hair off and didn't tell anyone," she continued, explaining she had done it for an independent film called "Burning Bodhi" the summer prior.

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"I don't know if I was being rebellious. I mean, I did do it for the movie, which was my excuse to cut it." But without running it by the show's production team, Cuoco shook things up on her own terms, saying, "I was bored and sick of the hair." But what she thought would be a stress-free style to cut down her time in hair and makeup couldn't have been further from reality. "In my attempt to spend less time on my hair, that decision bit me in the a** and it took way longer to do my short hair," she said. "I was like, this is the worst decision! What was I thinking?! I thought I was cutting off all this time, because I hated going in and getting ready."

When she wasn't spending extra time getting ready to play the new-and-improved Penny on the show, Cuoco said she actually liked the hairdo. "I had fun with it, and I did like it," she said, per Glamour. "I'm sure it was being negatively talked about all over the place, but I didn't pay as much attention to what people were saying on social media then."

That may have been for the best. Fans had mixed feelings about Penny's big haircut, and many weren't exactly favorable. "The short hair isn't ugly, but let's be honest — she went from 'girl next door' to 'vegan that owns three cats'. What were the writers thinking?" one Reddit user wrote. Another added, "I love Penny, but hated the cut." However, others came to her defense. "I think people forget actors and actresses have real lives outside of their job to entertain people. Her hair and clothing is for that role only. People should be allowed to get haircuts and change their appearance," said another.

Cuoco's co-star, Jim Parsons, who played Sheldon Cooper, was perhaps the most supportive of her impulsive decision. "It's one thing to change your hair for a play that's running for six months, it's another thing not to change it for a decade-plus," he said with a laugh, via Glamour. "At some point you just go, I'm going to do it and apologise later rather than ask permission."