Amanda Carpenter The Washington Times - July 20, 2009, 08:49AM

Don’t even try to come between a woman and her hairdresser — especially if that woman happens to be Gov. Sarah Palin.

Coiffeur Jessica Steele of Beehive Beauty in Wasilla, Alaska, says she never told the New York Times that the governor’s hair was thinning from stress, as their reporters wrote in a July 12 story.

The story said, “Friends worried that she appeared anxious and underweight. Her hair had thinned to the point where she needed emergency help from her hairdresser and close friend, Jessica Steele.”

It quoted Ms. Steele as saying “Honestly, I think all of it just broke her heart.”

That didn’t go over very well at the Beehive in Wasilla. Ms. Steele says she never said anything about Mrs. Palin’s hair thinning.

 “REALLY TORQUED at the NYT” she blasted in a message to her Twitter account.

Other commentators have used the New York Times’ claim about Mrs. Palin’s thinning hair as evidence she couldn’t handle the daily attacks made on her and her family. “Palin’s hair was thinning at such an alarming rate due to stress that her beautician staged an intevention,” Newsweek’s Eleanor Clift wrote, linking to the NYT story.

Not true at all, says Ms. Steele. “Media is so desperate to attack Sarah Palin they are saying lies about her hair!” Ms. Steele said on her Twitter account.  “I am her HAIRDRESSER!! U will not use me in a LIE media!!!!”

She continued posting, “If the worst thing they can come up with is a lie about Sarah Palin’s hair it’s pretty pathetic and bottom feeder journalism!!” and “U don’t mess with a hairdresser and her client! It’s a precious relationship! Don’t mess with my girl Sarah Palin!”

Ms. Steele is an ardent supporter of Mrs. Palin, even selling bright-pink pro-Palin T-shirts on her salon’s Web site. The hairdresser has been credited in several other articles, including one by the New York Times last year, for helping create Mrs. Palin’s trademark updo.