--- title: Kristen Bell Shares a Hilariously Awkward Throwback Picture description: Kristen Bell showed that even she had an awkward age when she produced a childhood photo of herself in the '80s, rocking a mullet. canonical: https://time.com/4505716/kristen-bell-mullett-picture/ author: Cady Lang article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-09-23T14:55:38.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:36:55.772Z og:title: See Kristen Bell's Hilariously Awkward Throwback Photo og:description: She was definitely a child of the '80s og:url: https://time.com/4505716/kristen-bell-mullett-picture/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfa50cd5ad5bb3e24/6988a74297cdffc4676ade73/kristen-bell-throwback-pic.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2000 og:image:height: 1125 og:image:alt: 68th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards - Arrivals og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: See Kristen Bell's Hilariously Awkward Throwback Photo twitter:description: She was definitely a child of the '80s twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfa50cd5ad5bb3e24/6988a74297cdffc4676ade73/kristen-bell-throwback-pic.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Kristen Bell's Ultimate Throwback School Portrait Reveals She Had a Mullett in the '80s > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=57fd6544-079f-4870-922d-41e6a28d164f&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1)  by [Cady Lang](https://time.com/author/cady-lang/)  ## Cady Lang Sep 23, 2016 2:55 PM UTC  Kristen Bell arrives at the 68th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards at Microsoft Theater on September 18, 2016 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by John Shearer/WireImage) Kristen Bell arrives at the 68th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards at Microsoft Theater on September 18, 2016 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by John Shearer/WireImage) John Shearer—WireImage  by [Cady Lang](https://time.com/author/cady-lang/)  ## Cady Lang Sep 23, 2016 2:55 PM UTC [Kristen Bell](http://motto.time.com/4352130/kristen-bell-frozen-depression-anxiety/) might walk a red carpet with ease now, but that doesn’t mean that she didn’t have a “disastrous haircut” growing up. On [_The Late Late Show_](http://time.com/4502631/james-corden-game-of-thrones-breaking-bad-stranger-things-musical/) on Wednesday night, the [_Good Place_](http://time.com/4476768/best-fall-tv-pilots/) actress revealed that she played baseball on an all-boys team as a kid. While some might worry about the gender disparity, Bell reassured host James Corden that she fit right in with the boys, thanks to her very ’80s hairstyle that came courtesy of her mother. “My mother made sure that I would not take any flak from anybody because she gave me a real disastrous sort of haircut to make sure I fit in with the boys,” Bell said. “She took the bangs past the ear, past the forehead, past the ear, all the way down to the back, which I believe we now call a mullet. So I never had any problems because everyone thought I was one of the little boys.” Bell even generously shared a photo of the memorable cut on the show, which you can see in the full clip below. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4505716/kristen-bell-mullett-picture/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4505716/kristen-bell-mullett-picture/"},"headline":"Kristen Bell's Ultimate Throwback School Portrait Reveals She Had a Mullett in the '80s","datePublished":"2016-09-23T14:55:38.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:36:55.772Z","description":"Mullet alert!","url":"https://time.com/4505716/kristen-bell-mullett-picture/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Entertainment","celebrity","Kristen Bell","Culture"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfa50cd5ad5bb3e24/6988a74297cdffc4676ade73/kristen-bell-throwback-pic.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Cady Lang","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/cady-lang/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfa50cd5ad5bb3e24/6988a74297cdffc4676ade73/kristen-bell-throwback-pic.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"68th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards - Arrivals","caption":"68th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards - Arrivals","creditText":"John Shearer—WireImage","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4505716/kristen-bell-mullett-picture/","name":"Kristen Bell's Ultimate Throwback School Portrait Reveals She Had a Mullett in the '80s"}}]}] ```