Lots of stars, particularly women, have come forward with stories of thinning hair to break
the taboos surrounding balding and to give the public the real truth about Hollywood's
perfect-seeming tresses.
Here are celebs who experienced severe hair loss.
Jada Pinkett Smith, a successful actress and the wife of Will Smith, found a significant
positive in her battle with hair loss.
In her case, she struggles with alopecia, an autoimmune disease that causes hair on
the face, skin, and body to fall out, with the National Alopecia Areata Foundation reporting,
"[I]t affects as many as 6.8 million people in the U.S...People of all ages, both sexes
and all ethnic groups can develop alopecia areata."
Pinkett Smith, who is often seen wearing a headscarf or rocking a cropped haircut or
braids, revealed that those style choices are a result of her hair loss struggles.
She opened up about the situation in a 2018 episode of her Facebook Watch show Red Table
Talk, saying,
"It was terrifying when it first started.
I was in the shower one day and then just handfuls of hair, just in my hands, and I
was just like, 'Oh my God, am I going bald?'"
"I've been having issues with hair loss."
Pinkett Smith also explained how she maintains a sense of perspective about her thinning
hair and said,
"I watch the higher power take things every day...and if the higher power wants to take
your hair?
That's it?
God, you want my hair?...When I looked at it from that perspective it really did settle
me."
He may host an HBO show called The Shop, in which he invites his famous friends to chat
and chill in a barbershop, but LeBron James' own receding hairline is a hot topic among
NBA fans.
At least his Los Angeles Lakers teammates have his back.
During a 2019 Lakers game, fans spotted fellow Lakers star Anthony Davis mouthing to James
that his hair was falling out, prompting James to fix his headband.
The incident sparked a fresh round of internet rumors about James' alleged use of hair plugs
or hair pieces.
As NBC Sports wrote,
"Each summer LeBron James comes back with a fresh hairline in a miraculous recovery
that appears to mirror the longevity of his own career in the NBA."
Luckily, James has a sense of humor about his hair loss.
In a 2017 post on his Instagram Stories, he panned the camera to his former teammate Dwayne
Wade, and joked about Wade's healthy head of hair, and asked,
"Is it not fair that he can grow his hair like that?"
Sarah Hyland has always been open with her fans about her health struggles, including
the hair loss that she experienced from treatments for her endometriosis and kidney dysplasia.
In 2019, the Modern Family actress was spotted with chin-length curly hair, a different look
from the sleek, straight locks she'd worn in public in the past, revealing that those
were actually hair extensions.
As she told Refinery29,
"With medications and stuff, it can make your hair fall out...So I had extensions put in...to
hide any of that loss...My hair that's growing back now is much curlier than what it used
to be.
It's like I'm four years old now, I guess."
Hyland has also solicited hair growth advice from her social media followers, posting on
her Instagram Stories in 2018,
"What hair care products are out there for thinning hair, this 27-year-old would like
to know.
I know it seems like I don't but I do."
"Things like this can be really hard on a person."
Viola Davis' hair loss journey began at a startlingly young age.
She was just 28 when she started seeing the drastic effects of alopecia.
The Oscar-winner told Vulture in 2014,
"I woke up one day and it looked like I had a Mohawk.
Big splash of bald on the top of my head."
And yet, what could have been a traumatic experience in Davis' life turned into a freeing
one, with Davis taking steps to find inner peace after learning that her hair loss was
stress-related.
As she explained,
"That's how I internalized it.
I don't do that anymore.
My favorite saying in the world is, 'The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.'
I am telling you, I have spent so much of my life not feeling comfortable in my skin.
I am just so not there anymore."
After wearing wigs and hair pieces non-stop for years, Davis decided to break free and
start wearing her natural hair in public, describing the experience as a turning point
for her confidence.
She told Vulture,
"I wore a wig in the jacuzzi.
I had a wig I wore around the house.
I had a wig that I wore to events.
I had a wig that I wore when I worked out.
I never showed my natural hair.
It was a crutch, not an enhancement...I was so desperate for people to think that I was
beautiful.
I had to be liberated from that to a certain extent."
For the majority of Ariana Grande's time in the spotlight, her natural hair has been a
mystery.
After years of dying her hair red for her breakout roles on the Nickelodeon shows Victorious
and Sam & Cat, Grande's transition to a music career came with a new set of hairstyles for
the star, including brightly-colored wigs and, most famously, her high ponytail.
Grande eventually came clean about why her hair so often appeared in a high pony, writing
in a since-deleted 2014 Instagram post that she used her signature pulled-back hairstyle
as a protective measure so that her extremely damaged natural hair could recover.
The star explained,
"I had to bleach my hair and dye it red every other week for the first four years of playing
Cat...I wear extensions but I wear it in a ponytail because my...hair is so broken that
it looks absolutely...absurd when I let it down."
Not all hair loss is medical, and it would seem that styling and dying can seriously
damage hair, causing it to break off, meaning that it needs time to re-grow.
Grande appears to be finally letting down that high ponytail and embracing her natural
hair, tweeting a photo of her real curls on March 30, 2020.
Her mom, Joan Grande, praised her daughter's new look, replying in a tweet,
"Your natural hair/curls is a world of its own...a magnificent beauty you are inside
and out."
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