Eat your heart out, Morgan Wallen. Jaxson Crossland, an 8 year old from Celeste, Texas, rocks the best mullet in the land— for his age range, at least, and per USA Mullet Championship guidelines.
Jax's curly mullet earned him the kids mullet championship's $500 first place prize, edging out Illinois native Noah's freedom flapper-style cut and Colorado resident Jude's modern mullet. Yes, those are real hairstyle names, as is the 2020 appropriate COVID campershell, the waterfall and state-specific looks the Tennessee top hat and the Texas tailgate.
"Jax has been just ecstatic since winning. It's been so great to be able to enter him into something that celebrates what makes him different," Zoie Shepard, his mom, told CNN. "It's been so awesome for Jax, people recognize him everywhere now."
Beyond earning a cash prize, the Texas boy made history as winner of the National Mullet Championship's first event outside of president Kevin Begola's home state of Michigan.
"The contest has blown up with over 20,000 votes from all over the country," Begola said in a statement. "During these tough times it's important to have fun. This is exactly what 2020 needed!"
Begola's contest for kids went viral in September, gaining 50,000 social media reactions on Facebook and Instagram.
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Mullets are associated with the '80s heyday of long-haired rockstars (from Bono to Joan Jett) and Hulkamania, though versions of the hairstyle can be found everywhere from Homer's The Illiad to paintings of Benjamin Franklin. By the '90s, it became synonymous with country music thanks to Billy Ray Cyrus, Blake Shelton, Alabama's Jeff Cook and others sporting hairdos representing t-shirt-ready phrase "business in the front, party in the back."
As for Jax's cash prize, the third grader from Hunt County plans to spend it on boxing lessons.
Just don't ask him for an autographs. As CNN reports, the national mullet champ still hasn't learned cursive.
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