Wow, congratulations to this woman and her world record-breaking mullet

If there’s one thing Dazed Beauty loves, it’s a cracking mullet. So it was with considerable glee that we learned the news of Tami Manis, who has just been awarded the record for being the woman with the longest mullet in the world. 

The mullet in question is a stunning 172.7cm (5ft 8in) long. Manis, who is a 58-year-old public health nurse living in Knoxville, Tennessee, started growing the style in 1990 – and she hasn’t cut the back since then. In an interview with Guinness World Records, she says she considers her mullet’s birthday February 9, 1990, which was officially the last time it was cut.

Since it’s longer than she is tall, Manis generally wears it in a braid – once a week a “very good friend” braids it for her – and when she goes for a ride on her motorcycle she tucks it into her jeans’ pocket. 

Manis was originally inspired to start growing her mullet after being inspired by a girl with a rat tail in the music video for the 1985 song “Voices Carry” by ’Til Tuesday. She never planned for it to go this far, however. “Growing the longest mullet never really started out as anything other than [it being the] 80s, and everybody had a rat tail. [So] I started growing mine,” she says in a video. “Over the years it’s just kept growing.” 

When it comes to her hair routine, Manis says she uses products from the manufacturer Hask, including shampoo and conditioner with argan oil in it, and dries it with a paper towel. She credits her good genes for her hair growing so long and thick. “I’ve been blessed that my hair grows and now it’s the world’s longest mullet and I’m very happy with it,” she says.

Over the last few years, mullets have witnessed a comeback. After years of being the weird cousin of the hair world, in 2020 the polarising style cemented its comeback, bringing some bonkers joy to bleak times. Since then it seems like everyone has experimented with the look including Rihanna, Christine and The Queens, Euphoria stars Barbie Ferreira and Jacob Elordi and Zac Efron, who assimilated to Australian culture with a baby mullet of his own.

Read our brief history of the most divisive hairstyle here and watch a great little video of Manis and her mullet below.