Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot (D.) is on defense after she was spotted getting a haircut, flouting Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker's stay-at-home order that also shut down nonessential businesses like hair salons.
Photos emerged Sunday of Lightfoot getting a trim after the mayor made public service announcements encouraging social distancing and saying activities like "getting your roots done" were not essential.
Lightfoot was flustered Monday when reporters confronted her about the mixed messaging.
"I'm the public face of this city," she said. "I'm on national media and I'm out in the public eye. I take my personal hygiene very seriously. I felt like I needed to have a haircut. I'm not able to do that myself, and so, I got a haircut. You want to talk more about that?"
She said if she did her hair herself, it would be a "disaster" and the media's focus should be on people dying of the virus.
Mayor Lightfoot decided it was essential for her to get a haircut, but no one else can go out and get one. This doesn’t look like social distancing to us, why the hypocrisy @chicagosmayor? pic.twitter.com/iEi7zIqnwO
— Chicago GOP (@ChicagoGOP) April 6, 2020
Lightfoot insisted that her actions did not contradict her message to the public, pointing to her stylist's use of a mask and gloves.
"I'm practicing what I'm preaching," she said.
Lightfoot recorded a series of humorous PSAs in March urging Chicagoans to "stay home, save lives." In one, she tells a friend over the phone that getting her roots done is not necessary; in another, she tells a friend that she does not need to get a pedicure.