House of the Dragon has inspired Cam Jordan, a defensive end playing for the New Orleans Saints, to die his hair platinum blonde in honor of the Velaryon family. He answered questions about the new look just the other day:
Cam Jordan on his “House of the Dragon inspired” hair 👀 pic.twitter.com/TIHBDWRD3j
— New Orleans Saints (@Saints) June 10, 2025
"I thought I was gonna cut it off, and then I was like, 'Y'know, let's have some fun with it.' So this is my version of fun. I wanted to be a Velaryon," Jordan said. He wanted to dye his beard to, but that didn't quite take. I think the point still comes across.
The Velaryons are the richest family in Westeros at the time of House of the Dragon. The family is headed up by sea-faring patriarch Corlys Velaryon, played by Steve Toussaint:
The silver-blonde hair of the Targaryens and Velaryons is a selling point of House of the Dragon and Game of Thrones before it; it's just so distinctive and inimitable. If you see someone in medieval garb with platinum blonde hair, you instantly know what show you're watching.
On Game of Thrones, the only prominent character with the distinctive Targaryen hair was Daenerys Targaryen herself. But House of the Dragon is set over a century before Game of Thrones when Targaryens were everywhere, meaning the show is full of atomic blonde dragon-riding emotional messes. The Velaryon family is not of royal blood like the Targaryens, but they do hail from Old Valyria and retain that distinctive coloring. House of the Dragon made the choice to cast Black actors to play members of the Velaryon family, which was a good way to add people of color of the cast in a way that stayed consistent with the rest of the mythology. Plus it gave us some new visual touchstones. Nuclear blonde hair is for everyone!
HBO is filming the third season of House of the Dragon as we speak, but it'll probably be a while before we see new episodes. The wait will be less long for Cam Jordan, who says he just started watching the show in the last couple of weeks. You can tell; in addition to the hairdo, he also posted this AI video of himself standing in front of a fire-breathing dragon on his Instagram. Someone's getting hooked:
I like the outfit the AI generated for him; it's kind of a combination of his Saints uniform and the sort of lordly medieval garb you might see on House of the Dragon or Game of Thrones. Anyway, expect new episodes of House of the Dragon sometime next year. Meanwhile, the Saints will start playing again in August. It's the off-season for everyone.
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