A HALLOWEEN dare during his off-season holiday in New York led to Jack Watts dying his hair, which was originally blue and has now become peroxide blond.

Returning for pre-season training on Monday, Watts quickly stood out with his new shock of hair, which has become a talking point amongst the footy fraternity.

But for the Melbourne forward, who had his finest AFL season in 2016, Watts said it was all a bit of fun. 

“I was over in New York and one of the boys dared me to come to Halloween with blue hair, so I thought ‘yep, why not’,” he told Melbourne TV.

“I jumped into a hairdresser and thought it would take 20 minutes and three hours later, they were still going at it.”

Watts added with a laugh: “I probably started to regret it at that stage, but now it’s got a bit of coverage and I’m obviously going for the Brownlow next year, I’m getting ahead of myself and all the rest of it – [because] of a change of hair colour.”

“I think that might motivate me to keep it for a while.”

Watts said he hadn’t done anything to it after it was initially blue.

“They told me to purple shampoo it, but I’m not really one to wash my hair,” he said.

“It then went green and then white and now it’s going back to that peroxide blond that they put into it at the start.

“I’ll run with it for a while.”

Although there have been comparisons to Justin Bieber, Eminem, David Bowie and Max Zorin, the villain played by Christopher Walken in the James Bond flick ‘A View to a Kill’, Watts likened his look to another famous name. 

“You have to go with Ellen DeGeneres don’t you? She’s a star that woman. I look up to her and now I look like her,” he said.

As for what his coaches and teammates think of his new look, Watts said “the same old stuff” was being trotted out. 

“Goody (Simon Goodwin) tells me I’m an idiot and some of them like it,” he said with a laugh.

“Some of them like it – the [players who are a] bit out there.

“It’s pretty standard and there is a resounding hatred towards it at this stage, but it probably just motivates me to keep it for a bit longer.”

Watts said he wasn’t fussed whether he kept it or not.

“I really don’t care. I think it’s probably more hassle to get rid of it than anything, so what I look like doesn’t really faze me too much,” he said.

“I’ll probably go with convenience and just leave it there until someone cuts my hair off or shaves the head. We’ll wait for something like that.”