Jason Momoa looks completely unrecognizable after shaving his beard
But there's also that beard. That glorious facial hair is his calling card, the thing that tells us it's Jason Momoa underneath all that. But in a recent video posted to Instagram, he shaves that thing off... and man, I think he looks unrecognizable.
Why'd he do it for the first time in six years? It's simple: He's spreading the word on eliminating single-use plastics with a water company. Good job there, Jason.
Here's the video:
And the finished product:
WOW!
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Time Magazine
an hour ago
- Time Magazine
The True Story Behind Hawaiian History Epic 'Chief of War'
Jason Momoa stands on a double-hulled canoe, steady as the Pacific Ocean heaves beneath him. His hair is bound in a taut knot, a cape of ti leaves in muted green draped over his broad shoulders. The camera catches light as it splinters across the cresting waves. In one fluid motion, he dives, vanishing beneath the glittering surface. The quiet ruptures into struggle as his character Ka'iana, a revered Hawaiian chief, lassoes a shark—man and predator locked in a primal dance of survival. It's a feat of strength and a statement of defiance from a warrior unafraid of whatever the ocean, or the future, might summon. This opening scene, mythic as it is visceral, sets the tone for Chief of War, Apple TV+'s sweeping nine-episode retelling of Hawaii's unification. It was a period, beginning in the late 18th century and culminating in the early 19th century, defined by fierce battles, shifting alliances, and the arrival of Western forces that forever changed the islands. Beyond starring in the show, Momoa co-wrote, produced, and directed an episode of the series, which debuts Aug. 1 and also features Luciane Buchanan, Temuera Morrison, Te Ao o Hinepehinga, Cliff Curtis, and Kaina Makua. On a balmy July afternoon, two weeks before Chief of War's premiere, Momoa sits with co-creator Thomas Pa'a Sibbett at the Four Seasons Resort O'ahu at Ko Olina, the sea glinting beyond the balcony. For years, the two immersed themselves in Ka'iana's story of survival, betrayal, and fight to shape a culture on the edge of transformation. Momoa, this time dry and at ease, lets his shoulder-length hair fall in loose waves around his sun-burnished face. In a Hawaiian-print shirt and white trousers, he's quick to smile as he explains how a project this personal, and this sweeping, demanded patience. 'When you have something that's very dear to you and you want to make something on this level, you need to get all your ducks in order,' he tells TIME. Aquaman's success in 2018, he explains, elevated his career to the point where this series became possible. 'We would never be at this level, so you just kind of got to wait for that,' he adds. It also required a creative team prepared for the weight of the story. That meant, alongside close collaborators like producer and director Brian Mendoza, having the industry capital, experience, and trust to tell a story of this scale on their own terms. 'This is our lineage. If we mess it up, we're not going home. There's a lot at stake to get the authenticity right.' For Momoa, 'home' has layered meaning. The son of Joseph, a Native Hawaiian painter, and Coni, an artist largely of European descent, he was born in Honolulu but mostly raised by his mother in Iowa while spending several summers in Hawaii with his father. Sibbett, also of Native Hawaiian heritage, grew up steeped in Polynesian traditions, where art and dance shaped his identity. The pair previously collaborated on the 2018 thriller Braven, the elegiac 2022 Western The Last Manhunt, and the 2023 sequel Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, but Chief of War is their most ambitious partnership yet. It has the scale of an epic while remaining deeply rooted in Native Hawaiian language, culture, and history. The idea for Chief of War first surfaced when Momoa and Sibbett were approached about telling the story of King Kamehameha I, who united the Hawaiian islands into one kingdom in 1810. But instead of centering solely on the legendary ruler, they chose a more complex figure as their entry point into Hawaiian history. Ka'iana, the first Hawaiian chief to travel beyond the islands, understood the intricate politics at home yet returned with knowledge from beyond the reef, becoming one of the king's key allies. 'Thomas came in with the idea and told me about Ka'iana, which I had no idea about,' Momoa recalls. 'But I thought, this is going to be amazing. It's just great storytelling—a great tale.' A life pulled by two tides The unification wars of the late 18th and early 19th centuries reshaped Hawaii. For generations, rival chiefs, known as 'ali'i', ruled the eight main islands like self-contained kingdoms, forging and breaking alliances through marriage, diplomacy, and warfare. Then came the foreign sails. British and American traders disrupted the delicate balance, foreigners ' muskets and cannons tipping the scales of battle. Measles and other diseases they brought with them swept through villages, thinning populations in waves. Amid the upheaval, King Kamehameha I saw uniting the islands under one rule as a way to shield Hawaiian culture from the varied threats posed by Western cultural influence. The wars began in the 1780s. After an early victory in 1782 at the Battle of Moku'ōhai, fought near Hawai'i Island's Kealakekua Bay, (the future) King Kamehameha I turned his gaze outward. In 1790, his forces invaded Maui, leading to the bloody Battle of Kepaniwai, where the waters of ʻĪao Valley were said to run thick with the dead. Five years later came the decisive Battle of Nu'uanu on O'ahu, where warriors were driven over the sheer Pali cliffs, securing his dominance over the most populous islands. By 1810, Kaua'i's King Kaumuali'i ceded his domain without bloodshed, and Hawai'i was politically unified for the first time. Unity came at a cost. Though King Kamehameha I strategically embraced Western weapons, trade, and advisors to defend his kingdom, unification also opened the islands more fully to outside influence. In consolidating power, he also set in motion a deeper entanglement with foreign interests, one that future generations would struggle to control. Over time, new legal systems, private land ownership, and economic pressures weakened Hawaiian sovereignty, laying the groundwork for the kingdom's eventual overthrow in 1893. That year, Queen Lili'uokalani was deposed by the Committee of Safety—a group of mostly American businessmen and sugar planters—partly enabled by the presence of U.S. Marines. Ka'iana's life unfolded along these shifting fault lines. Born around 1755 into a vast web of royal lineage that stretched across Hawaii, he was connected to nearly every major ruling family of his time and became the first Hawaiian chief to voyage beyond the islands. In 1787, he sailed to China, the Philippines, and the northwest coast of North America. In Canton, he was received as a dignitary, and honored with livestock, tools, and European goods. When he returned to Hawaii in 1788, Ka'iana brought back these gifts and also foreign knowledge of ships, weapons, and military tactics that made him invaluable to King Kamehameha I. For a time, Ka'iana was among the king's most trusted war leaders. But by 1795, as King Kamehameha I prepared to invade O'ahu, Ka'iana was excluded from the key war councils, a warning that his life potentially hung in the balance. Choosing defiance, he broke from the king and joined O'ahu's defenders under his cousin Kalanikūpule. Ka'iana was killed early in the Battle of Nu'uanu, near a stone wall close to what is now Queen Emma's Summer Palace. Hundreds of his warriors also fell. Was their cause a betrayal, or a principled stand against a ruler whose ambitions threatened to consume their way of life? Some historians see him as a visionary who glimpsed a future Hawaii caught between two worlds; others view him as a tragic figure undone by the violent tide of change. In his lifetime, he was celebrated as the 'Prince of Kaua'i,' the first Hawaiian to witness the wider Pacific world and return to tell the story. But in the end, he could not escape being swept away by the very forces he sought to understand. Speaking the language of the ancestors Chief of War does not shy away from the darker truths of unification: the bloodshed, the betrayals, and the sacrifices made in the name of survival. It also reveals a Hawaii rarely seen on screen—sacred heiau temples, the fierce precision of Kapu Ku'ialua martial arts, and the intricate systems of alliance and influence that shaped the islands long before Western ships broke the horizon. One way the series honors its roots is through its embrace of the Hawaiian language. Much of the show, including its first two episodes, is spoken in ʻOlelo Hawai'i, the lyrical native tongue of the islands. 'The truth is, to hear and to know someone's language is to know the people and the way they think,' Sibbett says. 'It was integral.' Reviving the language was a profound challenge. Generations ago, colonizers suppressed the teaching of ʻOlelo Hawai'i in schools, and the number of fluent speakers declined sharply as English became the language of business and governance. It wasn't until the '70s that a revitalization movement began, documenting native speakers and teaching the language to new generations. For Chief of War, the casting process required extraordinary care to find actors who could master ʻOlelo Hawai'i. 'I was probably the worst at it, but we worked really hard,' Momoa admits with a laugh. 'Even if I was directing, my language coach was literally off camera, and he was the deciding factor of whether I could move on [from a scene].' That same reverence for authenticity extended to the series' soundscape. Hans Zimmer, whose unforgettable scores for Gladiator, The Lion King, and 2021's Dune have helped define entire cinematic eras, was a top choice. But landing this particular composer seemed unlikely to the creative team, at first. To persuade Zimmer, Momoa and Mendoza staged what Momoa calls a 'Hail Mary' pitch. They took a small catamaran out to O'ahu's North Shore, where the actor donned a makeshift cape and helmet and filmed striking imagery—a 'bunch of awesome little motifs,' as he puts it—meant to capture the tone and spirit of the series. They quickly cut the footage into a rough trailer, layered it with Zimmer's music they already loved, and sent it along with the script, hoping to give him a visceral sense of what the project would feel like. When they finally called Zimmer for the meeting, Momoa braced for rejection. 'We were ready with this 20-minute pitch, like, 'No, but you have to listen to us… it's so very dear to us, and no one's ever done this,'' he recalls. But before they could even launch into their appeal, Zimmer interrupted: 'When do we start?' The resulting score is lush and layered. Deep percussion, haunting choral chants, and soaring strings lend a sense of gravitas and grandeur to the show's most intimate and epic moments. Zimmer, who composed the show's main theme, collaborated with James Everingham on the broader score, which incorporates traditional Hawaiian instruments like shark-skin drums. The composers also worked closely with Native Hawaiian artist Kaumakaiwa Kanaka'ole to ensure the music remained rooted in cultural authenticity. It becomes a sonic bridge between past and present, helping build a vision of old Hawaii that feels raw, tactile, and alive. A show shaped by fire and sea Filmed across Hawaii and New Zealand, Chief of War is as ambitious in its scope and scale as it is in its storytelling. Guided by cultural experts and consultants, authenticity shaped every frame of the series. 'It felt holistic,' says showrunner, executive producer and co-writer Doug Jung. That ethos, he explains, eliminated 'guesswork' or well-intentioned but inaccurate choices. 'There was always a right way. We aimed for that, while also obviously accounting for modern times.' Entire coastal villages were painstakingly reconstructed using traditional techniques. Canoe builders crafted 47 traditional Hawaiian wa'as—double-hulled voyaging canoes—while more than 42,000 feet of Evolon, a lightweight fabric prized for its strength and versatility in costume design, went into garments that honored the textures and designs of the era, including the feathered capes and cloaks worn by high chiefs. The production was pushed even further for the show's more heart-pounding moments. For one adrenaline-fueled sequence between Ka'iana and King Kamehameha I, played in the show by Makua, the team recreated holua sled racing, a sacred Hawaiian sport. In Awhitu, a rugged coastal stretch of New Zealand, the crew filmed riders launching themselves down mile-long tracks of hardened lava on sleds scarcely six inches wide, reaching speeds of nearly 60 miles per hour before plunging into the Pacific. Much of the sequence was filmed practically, with cameras placed low to the ground to mimic the terrifying velocity and perspective of the riders. Other scenes demanded something even more elemental. On the Big Island, 75 stunt performers gathered on the black lava fields of Kalapana to film one of the series' climactic battles. The land was silent, jagged rock stretching for miles, until Mauna Loa stirred. Without warning, the volcano erupted for the first time in 38 years. For safety, the crew consulted the production's geologist; filming went on as the volcano rumbled in the distance. On the final day of shooting in the black desert, they wrapped production and celebrated with a small party. By the next morning, the eruption ceased. For members of the cast and crew, the timing felt uncanny, as if the island itself was somehow answering back, its living history mirroring the story they were telling. When the past rises like a wave With Chief of War, a story at once intimate and sweeping confronts Hawaiian history in all its peril and beauty, drawing centuries of memory back into the light. 'We wanted the story to feel universal,' Sibbett says. 'It doesn't matter where you're from. We all go through the same things. You can look at this and easily equate it to something like the Iliad of the Pacific. It doesn't have to be seen only as a Hawaiian story, but the texture is Hawaiian. The nuances are Hawaiian.' The series may unfold in another time and place, but it speaks to enduring truths. It resists simple answers and rejects one-dimensional heroes. King Kamehameha I is both unifier and conqueror; Ka'iana is at once loyal and conflicted. Even the foreign sailors—some allies, others opportunists—have nuance and complexity. 'Any time you can present any culture with as full of the spectrum of human experience as you can, it just makes that culture more identifiable,' Jung says. 'You see yourself in it.' At one point during the conversation, Momoa glances at his feet, silent for a beat, lost in thought. Reflecting on the years spent bringing Chief of War to life, his voice softens. Learning the islands' native tongue has, he says, deepened his bond with his lineage. When he walks through Honolulu's Bishop Museum, a shrine to its cultural and natural history, he can read the ancient words etched on its walls with understanding. 'It's slow to happen for me, but I'm always going to continue on [learning],' he says. 'My kids are learning now, and I look forward to growing old and being able to hopefully speak to my grandchildren in Hawaiian, too.'
Cosmopolitan
an hour ago
- Cosmopolitan
Attention Le Creuset fans! Brand releases 'timeless' and 'beautiful' new colour way - here's how to shop
One of our favourite kitchenware brands Le Creuset has officially released their brand new colour way, and it's safe to say, we will be adding it straight to our basket. After teasing their followers on Instagram throughout the week with what the new colour could potentially be, earlier today [1 August] the brand, which has been around for 100 years, revealed their new colour for 2025 It's a dramatic deep dark blue, that looks perfect for evening hosting. Le Creuset describes the new colour way as "sophisticated, dreamy and alluring" and adds that it "sets the tone for late summer and early autumn - inviting deeper connections and rich conversation around the dinner table and beyond." Marianna Spiliotopoulos, the Head of Marketing at Le Creuset said of the new launch: 'We're super excited to launch Nuit, our most dramatic blue yet. At Le Creuset, we are trendsetters in colourful cookware, and we love to lean into striking colours. With Nuit, we pay homage to the essence of the night, when the sky darkens and celebrations take place. Here, whether it be a party or a shared meal together, we want people to use Nuit to create new memories.' Ready to see the new colour way? Here it is: Fans have been loving the new colour way since the reveal earlier today, with one person commenting it looks: "rich, velvety and timeless," while another said it looked: "absolutely beautiful" and another added: "stunning." Over the years Le Creuset has released some unique colour ways including a soft pink, an ultra violet, and last year they debuted a thyme green, which was a perfect rich shade for autumn. The new Nuit colour way is available for all the enamelled Cast Iron products including the classic Cast Iron Round Casserole and the Cast Iron Deep skillet. The new range is available to shop straight away on the Le Creuset official website. The website is also currently running their summer sale in which you can get up to 40 per cent off selected items. If ever there was a time to shop Le Creuset, surely it's now? The new Nuit range is available online at Le Creuset Lydia Venn is Cosmopolitan UK's Senior Entertainment and Lifestyle Writer. She covers everything from TV and film, to the latest celebrity news. She also writes across our work/life section regularly creating quizzes, covering exciting new food releases and sharing the latest interior must-haves. In her role she's interviewed everyone from Margot Robbie to Niall Horan, and her work has appeared on an episode of The Kardashians. After completing a degree in English at the University of Exeter, Lydia moved into fashion journalism, writing for the Daily Express, before working as Features Editor at The Tab, where she spoke on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour and Talk Radio. She has an encyclopedic knowledge of Gilmore Girls and 00s teen movies, and in her free time can be found with a margarita in hand watching the Real Housewives on repeat. Find her on LinkedIn.
WIRED
an hour ago
- WIRED
Confessions of a Recovering AI Porn Addict
A 'gooner' tells WIRED he became hooked on the cartoonish nature of AI porn. Several addictions experts say the genre could pose a problem for people prone to compulsive sexual behavior. A blurred image of a mobile phone with pornographic scenes. Photograph: Getty Images Kyle's interest in AI porn began last summer as he circled rock bottom. From the outside, everything seemed fine. He was in a committed relationship with his longtime girlfriend. He enjoyed the perks of his job working for a sports betting company. Still, all he could think about was fueling his porn addiction in new ways—even at the cost of feeling mentally drained and tired. 'Pretty much all I wanted to do was doomscroll on my phone and watch content. And I wasn't able to stop even though I noticed that it was a problem. I became desensitized,' he says. 'I was looking for that next dose of excitement.' 'It was something I had not seen before—and I had to see more.' That's when he came across the Instagram Reel showing an AI-generated image of a woman with 'extremely large breasts the size of her body,' he says. He knew it was fake but also felt strangely seduced by it. 'In the back of my mind, I was like, OK, I do find this kind of attractive,' he says. 'It was something I had not seen before—and I had to see more.' Kyle is a 'gooner,' a term for someone who finds pleasure from prolonged sessions of intense masturbation. The 26-year-old, who asked to be identified by his first name citing privacy concerns, says that at the peak of his addiction he would force himself to masturbate 'either out of habit, obligation or desire.' The Instagram Reel led him down a rabbit hole of dreamlike pleasure as he searched for AI porn that depicted 'women with cartoonish boobs, aeriolas and nipples twice the size of the rest of her torso, [and] super wide hips.' When we speak over the phone one recent afternoon in July, Kyle tells me he always had an interest in surrealism—'things that are just completely unnatural and not possible in real life'—and that AI unlocked his appetite tenfold. On Reddit he started commenting on r/BustyAIBabes and would often take time out of work to check X and Instagram, or cycle through Xvideos late at night, while his girlfriend slept, for 'POV stuff, blowjob videos, and jerk off inspiration,' he says. 'I started looking for more taboo things, such as AI porn. And then it got to a point where that didn't arouse me anymore. So I had to search for even more AI.' Porn sites are some of the most-visited online, according to a 2023 study, and as AI has gone mainstream, so have concerns around the risks that this growing genre of adult entertainment presents for people who suffer from compulsive sexual behavior disorder (CSBD), the official term recognized by the American Psychiatric Association. Porn addiction, as it is commonly referred to, is not considered an official diagnosis, and is not currently listed among the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders , the APA's approved guidebook; it's a contested topic within academic circles. Still, people report feeling out of control with their porn consumption; a meta-analysis published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior in 2018 found that those who express concerns about porn addiction are often actually experiencing distress over their religion-based moral beliefs surrounding pornography. The spread of AI porn poses 'intriguing yet concerning implications,' says Leor Ram, a therapist at Integrative Psychotherapy Group in Beverly Hills, California. 'We already live in a society where people are growing increasingly accustomed to having what they want, when they want it. While that's convenient for many aspects of life, it's detrimental to relationships and community.' Like other mental health professionals who spoke to WIRED, he says the problem has less to do with its proliferation and more to do with its capacity to magnify pre-existing vulnerabilities toward compulsive or unhealthy behaviors. 'There's every reason to anticipate its growing presence as the technology becomes more sophisticated, personalized, and accessible.' In June, a member of the subreddit NoFap—a porn addiction peer support forum for people who suffer from CSBD, specifically gooners—warned against the use of AI porn. 'Came across the devil himself and you know they say the road to hell is really fun,' they posted to the group, which has 1.2 million members. 'Stay the fuck away from that shit guys … It's going to get harder to avoid because it captures all your vices and traps you.' 'Already went down that rabbit hole, super hard to get out of it,' one member replied. 'Agreed,' wrote another. 'AI porn is insane and insanely addictive.' Ross Crothers, a therapist who specializes in queer and trans-affirming care in East Los Angeles, believes AI porn will change how people approach relationships, 'or rather, avoid them,' he says. Once the neural pathway between AI and sexual pleasure is firmly established, he adds, 'it almost becomes too efficient. This causes other sexual experiences to shift and become less pleasurable in comparison. This is where we will see more avoidance of relationships and an increase in isolation.' Kyle says his girlfriend, who he has been with for seven years, began to notice a distance growing between them this year that started to negatively affect their sex life. 'My erections weren't as strong as they could have been. I couldn't last as long,' he says. 'And I never directly told her what I was exactly struggling with. But I could sense that there was less attraction there than there had been before. She had gotten the proverbial ick.' Outside of Reddit threads, though, AI-specific porn addiction isn't currently dominating the clinical landscape. 'We're not seeing a surge of cases in our practice yet,' Rob Terry, a sex addiction therapist and founder of Karuna Healing in St. George, Utah, says. 'But it does come up here and there.' Still, several experts WIRED spoke with say they believe it is 'only a matter of time' before the effects of AI-generated porn become a larger issue. AI erotica is a quickly developing genre. AI generators and nudifying apps, like have contributed to the prevalence of AI porn while also raising ethical concerns around the use of nonconsensual deepfakes. An analysis by Indicator, which investigated 85 nudify websites, found that the industry is already pulling in an estimated $36 million per year. On Pornhub, one of the most visited websites in the world, AI porn is restricted to animated content. Current protocol only allows for AI content from the original creators; they are required to undergo a verification process before uploading videos. 'We ask that people prove it's their work,' Alex Kekesi, Pornhub's vice president of brand and community, says. But even the content uploaded within those restrictions has found an audience, from hyperreal fantasies ('Fucked a bitch without a spine and I liked it') to smutty reimaginings of Marvel characters ('Spider Gwen's First Lesson in Love'). Hentai—a genre of porn content that includes exaggerated video game and anime characters—is currently the most searched term on the site in the US, according to Pornhub. In 2024, Gen Z were 193 percent more likely to view Hentai content compared to all other age groups. Everywhere, it seems, interest around the subject is intensifying. Since April, search traffic on YouTube for 'AI porn' has been the highest in Sweden, Australia, and Canada, according to Google Trends. More recently, the Supreme Court's decision upholding Texas' porn ID law—which is similar to laws in at least 20 other states and requires adult websites to verify their users are at least 18—has raised the question of whether some people may instead make AI porn at home, bypassing these platforms altogether. Its increasing ability to create hyperreal sexual images, catered specifically to a person's desires, can now produce porn that is just as orgasmic as any human-generated video floating around on aggregator sites. Companion apps like Nomi and Replika are also being used as alternatives to build intimate relationships and have sex with AI bots. But 'AI porn, in itself, is not necessarily a problem,' says Paula Hall, a psychotherapist at London's Laurel Centre, the leading specialist provider of treatment for CSBD in the UK, 'but rather the way in which it is used.' As people become more accustomed to getting what they want from realistic AI renderings of porn, in addition to the buffet of erotic media that already exists across the internet, human connection, for some, may no longer be enough, says Monifa Ellis-Addie, a therapist at Banyan Therapy Group in Los Angeles, a faith-based counseling practice. In the most extreme cases, mental health professionals say that an increased dependency will enable people to fully detach. 'The effects are going to be pretty damaging,' Ellis-Addie says. For some people, sex addiction is built on a kind of 'faux-intimacy,' she continues. 'AI is only going to make that easier. It's going to feel as if you're dealing with an actual person, and with an actual person comes things like actual feelings. It will make people more distant in real life.' Kyle's epiphany that it was time to finally temper his addiction came during a work trip to New York City in February. He was alone in a hotel, away from his girlfriend, and, he says, 'I just kept doing it and doing it but I didn't feel any better.' He's since taken action to limit his need to masturbate, including joining the Reddit support group NoFap, where members share similar struggles. Professionals believe that could make initiating new IRL relationships more difficult. Young people are currently facing a mental health crisis. Last year, the US surgeon general called for a warning label on all social media platforms. One major consequence has been a 'loneliness epidemic,' according to a 2024 Harvard study, which suggested that people who feel more alone suffer from higher rates of depression and anxiety. 'Social media has distorted our views on so many things—body image, social class, politics. It's hurt people in many ways,' says Daniel Glazer, a psychotherapist at Fifth Ave Psychiatry in New York, citing loneliness, isolation, depression, shame, and issues related to sexual performance as areas of concern. What's happening with AI porn 'could be another extension of that,' he adds. But AI also has the potential for real 'positive crossover' for people who struggle with relationships, both platonic and romantic. 'I understand sex addiction as a way to avoid life, a way to avoid relationships. So AI can be a kind of a bridge to someone who's fearful of a relationship,' Glazer says. 'Here's a relationship that isn't scary and one where you won't be criticized.' They'll just have to manage their reliance on it. More recently, Kyle has fully curbed his intake of adult content. Though AI porn is still in its early days, he considers it 'one of the worst technological developments that we have coming up right now' because of its over accessibility. 'It's worse than the real thing.'
