Adrion tells PEOPLE how his mom influenced his decision

NEED TO KNOW

• Comedian Mario Adrion ended his last tour in Turkey, so he treated himself to a hair transplant
• He tells PEOPLE that he was feeling self-conscious about his hairline
• Adrion went back on stage three days post-op, making jokes about his hair transplant right away

Comedian Mario Adrion ended his recent tour in an epic way: He got a hair transplant in Turkey.

The German star, 32, tells PEOPLE that he started noticing that his hairline was receding, specifically in fan photos while he was on stage.

“Then I asked my German mom, and here’s the thing: German moms are just extremely honest, too much so sometimes,” Adrion shares. “So I asked her, ‘Mom, do you think my hair… I think I’m a bit insecure because my hairline is a little receding on the sides here.’ She was like, ‘Oh yeah, Mario, I meant to tell you, I’ve been noticing for a long time.’ And I was like, ‘Jesus Christ, Mom.’”

Adrion admits that it didn’t feel “urgent” to do something about his hair, especially with his busy schedule, but the timing worked out with the tour. Plus, he says, getting the hair transplant forced him to take some time for himself to do this.

“I’m the kind of person, I always work,” he says. “And things are going well right now in my career, so there’s a lot of demand. But this is actually nice because it gave me permission to take some time off.”

Adrion went to EsteNove in Istanbul and brought his mom along for moral support (though he jokes that he thinks she just wanted the trip to Istanbul for fun). While under the care of the facility in July, he got 2,400 grafts implanted through FUE technique, which means the hair follicles were taken from the back of his head and moved to his hairline. He also had stem cell treatment done, which is designed to stimulate dormant hair follicles, thicken thinning hair and improve scalp healing.

To prepare Adrion for his transplant, the bottom and back of his head were shaved, which he says made him look like a “cool lad” or a British football player. He then got numbing injections in his head, which he says was the only painful part of the process.

During the procedure, Adrion says they played Turkish rap music for him to keep him distracted throughout the hours-long process. First while he was face down so they could harvest the follicles from the back of his head and then while he was on his back getting them transplanted into his hairline.

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“It was pretty relaxing,” he admits. “It was just like, okay, thinking about my life. It’s like getting a massage at some point. You’re just laying there.”

“Hosting Mario was a real pleasure for our team at EsteNove,” says Dr. Yücel İskender, chief medical director. “Given that his appearance and on-camera presence are integral to his profession, we developed a highly personalized treatment plan designed to deliver natural-looking results while minimizing disruption to his schedule. Following a comprehensive assessment of his scalp, hair quality, donor capacity, and facial proportions, we performed an unshaven FUE hair transplant, allowing him to return to his professional commitments without the extended downtime typically associated with a shaved procedure.”

Dr. İskender adds that the facility’s priority for the comedian was to give him a “natural” look, which Adrion agrees was achieved.

In the days following the procedure, Adrion says he only experienced a bit of pressure and discomfort but no pain. In any case, he didn’t plan to take any medication.

“We Germans, we don’t take a lot of medication. I have this joke where I say Americans stub their toe; they take Advil, Gabapentin, Tylenol. In Germany, we take a walk. We just deal with it,” he jokes.

He was able to get out and enjoy Istanbul for a bit before leaving, and he says that a few fans did recognize him, despite how different his hair looked.

“It was just weird to walk around in public,” he admits. “I’m a comedian, so people do recognize me, especially in Turkey, which I didn’t expect. So there were a couple people who recognized me, and I just looked a little bit like I had a pretty interesting haircut. My hair was very long on the top, so it went from super long to this crazy undercut. So I just looked a little edgy, a little very avant-garde, a little Frankensteiny maybe.”

Three days post-op, Adrion was on stage in Los Angeles doing one of the biggest stand-up shows of his career. Rather than try to shy away from his very obvious haircut, he addressed it head-on the best way he knew how: with jokes.

“I made the joke, it looks like I’ve been radicalized in Europe, because I came back from Europe and I looked different than before,” Adrion says.

Now that he’s about two months since his procedure, the shaved part of his hair is growing back in, and Adrion says his transplant evidence is nearly undetectable. It takes several months, though, for there to be a noticeable change in the transplanted hair. He’s already feeling really good about the outcome, though, especially after how much feedback he’s received from fans, friends and family.

“There’s a lot of genuine interest about this,” he says of the messages he received after being open about the procedure. “I think sometimes people just don’t talk about it openly. But I think it’s becoming so accepted. Everybody’s talking.”

As for how Adrion’s mom feels about the change in his appearance after contributing to him getting the hair transplant in the first place? Well …

“My mom is not one to compliment me,” he jokes. “But she told me the best version of a German compliment. She said, ‘Mario, you look not bad,’ which is the greatest compliment you’ll ever get from a German mom.”

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