'Painful'
,
'depressing'
,
'embarrassing'
: Many Hollywood actresses and celebrities like Jada Pinkett Smith have spoken publicly about the difficulty of living with alopecia, a condition that causes severe hair loss.
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Read alsoWill Smith publicly apologizes after slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars
The 50-year-old actress, who is married to Will Smith, first spoke out in 2018 about her alopecia diagnosis:
"It was one of those times in my life where I was literally shaking with fear
. "
she said on her
Red Table Talk
program .
The disease became a topic of global conversation when comedian Chris Rock was slapped by Will Smith on the Oscars stage.
The first had just made a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith's cropped hair, which infuriated her husband.
Read alsoWho is Chris Rock, the comedian slapped by Will Smith at the Oscars?
"Let's talk about what it's like to live with alopecia"
, launched on Twitter the elected democrat Ayanna Pressley, who revealed in 2020 the suffering and the discomfort caused by this condition.
Sunday evening, Ayanna Pressley had congratulated Will Smith for his gesture on Twitter, before deleting his message.
“Bravo to all the husbands who defend their wives with alopecia in the face of ignorance and the insults of everyday life
,” she wrote.
In recent years, several actresses have spoken about the impact caused by the loss of their hair, whether it is stress, a postpartum condition or Covid-19.
"I have battled hair loss my entire adult life
," actress Ricki Lake wrote on Instagram in 2020, showing off her shaved hair.
“It's been embarrassing, painful, depressing, lonely.
There were a few times where I even had suicidal thoughts
,” she added.
“It's not glamorous, but it's real: I have to take long showers so I can pick up the falling hair and throw it away so it doesn't clog the tub.
Why don't actresses ever talk about it?
, Selma Blair had said (
Sex Intentions
) to People magazine in 2011 after giving birth.
“Alopecia is no joke”
Oscar-winning actress Viola Davis has also revealed that she suffered from alopecia for much of her life, trying to hide it with hairpieces.
“I had a wig that I wore at home, one that I wore to events, one that I wore for sports.
I never showed my natural hair.
I desperately wanted people to think I was beautiful
,” she said.
Recently, actress Alyssa Milano said she lost her hair after contracting Covid-19.
"It's hard, especially when you're an actress and a lot of your identity is tied up in things like long, silky hair,"
she explained.
Read alsoWill Smith publicly apologizes after slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars
"Alopecia is no joke
," the California-based National Alopecia Foundation said in a statement on Monday.
"It is an autoimmune disease that causes hair loss on the scalp, face and sometimes other parts of the body
," explains the Foundation.
This condition affects about 7 million people in the United States and some 147 million worldwide, she notes.
"It can have a significant emotional, psychosocial and mental impact...Many people are coping with pain, and the best thing we can do is support them and challenge the stigma and discrimination that persists
," insists its president, Nicole Friedland.
Some were surprised Monday that Chris Rock made fun of Jada Pinkett Smith's cropped hair at the Oscars, saying he was well aware that this was a sensitive subject.
In 2009, the comedian had indeed addressed the complex relationship between black women and their hair in a documentary,
Good Hair
, which he co-wrote and of which he was the narrator.
Chris Rock had explained that the idea for this film had come to him from one of his daughters who asked him why she did not have
"beautiful hair"
.
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