Termcolor remove color from string

In this code it makes the string 'hello' red:

from termcolor import colored
a = colored('hello', 'red')
print(a)

Is there a way to make the variable a turn into a normal string that is not colored?

removing the first and last 4 characters of the string should remove the colour info. E.g:

from termcolor import colored
a = colored('hello', 'red')
print(a)
b = a[5:-4]
print(b)