To those of us old enough to remember the MTV original, which aired between 2000 and 2002 and was followed up by a series of feature-length specials, the image of a suave, silver-haired Knoxville is jarring for two reasons. First, because we glimpse in him our own inexorable descent into middle age and second, because if you’d asked us 20 years ago to name the celebrity most likely to grow old gracefully, he would have been the last person on our list.

Then again, maybe we shouldn’t be surprised. If any modern-day celebrity were going to embrace grey hair it would surely be someone such as Knoxville, whose devil-may-care attitude to self-preservation over the years has had him tasered, tear-gassed and, most recently, knocked out cold by a charging bull. And while going grey doesn’t compare to any of the above for risk or spectacle, it does, in its own small way, reflect the punk ethos on which Jackass was built.

It’s a sign of the times that greying hair, once a mark of distinction, now carries with it a frisson of rebelliousness. In an era when celebrities have become poster boys for an increasingly unrealistic set of male beauty standards and where the rich and famous appear to have opted out of the ageing process, simply letting nature take its course feels like a quietly revolutionary act.

It’s no secret that we men have a complicated relationship with our hair. Its thickness and colour are two of our clearest and most anguish-inducing signs of encroaching old age. But it was women, not men, who first pushed back against the established notion that grey hair was something to be feared, concealed, plucked out or dyed into oblivion.

“The trend for grey we’re seeing in the salon right now started off with women,” says Mr Jonny Long, salon owner and co-founder of men’s grooming brand Saunders & Long. He has noticed an increase in the number of men asking for their hair to be bleached beyond blond – almost to the point that it appears grey. “There’s a far greater pressure on women than men to maintain a youthful appearance and they’ve started pushing back,” he says.

With style icons such as British Vogue’s Ms Sarah Harris and A-listers such as Ms Andie MacDowell championing a more natural hair tone, plus fashion designers such as Mr Pierpaolo Piccioli, creative director of Valentino, proudly sending grey-haired models down the runway, grey is now a fully established trend for women and it’s slowly making its mark in the world of men’s grooming, too.

As with many of today’s trends, the Covid-19 pandemic played an instrumental role in bringing this one to the fore. The closure of hair salons during lockdown made it difficult for many to maintain their regular dyeing routine and hastened a decision that, in many cases, they had been putting off for years. Knoxville had been dyeing his hair since his early twenties, but finally gave up while stuck at home, cutting his hair down to the roots in April 2020 “to match my quarantine beard”, he told his followers on Instagram.

“By the time you’re more than 50 per cent grey, you’re fighting a losing battle,” says Long. “When the roots are coming through faster than you can dye them, it’s time to admit defeat.” As he’s keen to point out, though, it’s not simply a matter of letting yourself go. “Good grey hair isn’t just something that happens,” he says. “It requires maintenance.” He recommends investing in a good shampoo, such as Redken’s Color Extend Graydient, which contains active ingredients that counteract free radicals to keep grey hair’s brassy undertones in check.

More than effort, this is a look that requires confidence, he says, returning to Knoxville. “It’s not just the colour,” says Long. “It’s the way he’s styled it, the way he’s dressed.” Ultimately, he says, it’s about being yourself and not whom people want you to be. “You could dress in heels, culottes and a big fedora,” he says. “If you rock it with style and you rock it with a good attitude, anything’s possible.”