Massachusetts Representative Ayanna Pressley — who also has alopecia — condemned Rock’s joke
Photo-Illustration: by The Cut; Photos: Getty Images Last night, the whole world watched Will Smith slap Chris Rock after the comedian joked about Jada Pinkett Smith’s hair loss at the Oscars. Yet the full context went beyond what viewers saw on television. Jada Pinkett Smith — who showed up on the red carpet without a wig, looking absolutely stunning — has alopecia areata, an autoimmune disorder that results in hair loss and disproportionately affects Black women. On Monday, .
Pinkett Smith revealed her struggle with alopecia last year, when she posted a video of her bald head on Instagram. “Now at this point I can only laugh,” she said, tracing a line of hair loss along her scalp. Pressley first opened up about her alopecia in 2020 in an emotional video for The Root, in which she reflected on the way her identity as a Black woman was tied up in her hair and the pain of losing it. “I felt embarrassed.
The Daily Beast reports that Pressley initially posted a tweet reading “Thank you #WillSmith,” though she quickly deleted it. In her later thread, she clarified that she does not “endorse violence in any form” and expressed appreciation for her fellow alopecia sufferers and their support systems. “Let’s talk about what it’s like to live with #alopecia. The deeply vulnerable & difficult moments that our families see,” Pressley wrote alongside a photo of herself and her husband, Conan Harris.
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