It just controlled my life.
I was always worried about it. I was always thinking about it. It definitely made me feel
really ashamed of how I looked for sure. I'm Chris, I'm 29 and I started losing my hair at 20.
I was a contestant on So You Think You Can Dance, starring in the show and it was such an exciting
time. When my hair first started thinning, the hair line had moved way back on my head. It
was kind of rapidly going instantly. I couldn't handle the thought of someone looking at my hair
or touching my hair because of how bad it looked and I was so ashamed of it. I was super young
thinking: I'm 21, I should have a head full of hair you know. I remember being just so upset.
There was never any really clear answers of why. Doctors were just kind of saying that it was either
hereditary or it can just happen. Most of the options had a lot of side effects.
The medication made me really worried that if it was to take it, is it worth the hair growth.
The hair transplant isn't 100% guaranteed that it can stay forever. The best result we got
was like a hair growth cream. It took about three months to kick in and by 22,
it had come back. So it was like a good six months of using this cream. It was just so exciting.
So I was living in Los Angeles when I received one of the worst phone calls I probably could
have ever got in my life. My Mum had passed away. And I guess in that time, the stress was
like unbearable.Immediately my hair just started to fall out again. I just thought like that's
it. It's not going to come back again. I was consistently trying to hide it. Even for me just
going to the mailbox, I would put a hat on. It was just exhausting. I was always worrying
about what I looked like that I just thought the only option was to completely get rid of it.
Being in the entertainment industry is hard. You're being judged every second on how you look.
Once I shaved the hair off, the job I was given were just all dad roles or
literally old man roles, like in inverted commas, "old man".
It was just so disappointing. That for me, was the final straw when I started seeing
those words. I was like, I have to do something about this.
If I had known how simple getting a hair piece was, I would have done it years ago.
I definitely think there is stigma around hair pieces and toupees today. There's no difference
with a woman getting extensions and a guy getting something for his hair. I think it's exactly the
same thing. It doesn't matter to me at all that this isn't my hair. I actually forget that it's
not mine most of the time because it's connected to my head. I feel amazing. I feel probably the
best I've felt in years. I feel so good about the way I look. I feel good on the inside.
I felt like there wasn't enough talk about hair loss. The more we speak about this, the
more it becomes normal and the more it's just a normal conversation.
It takes a lot of courage and strength to put your hand up and ask for help.