Jada Pinkett Smith talked loving her bald head days before the Oscars

By Lisa Respers France, CNN

Hair was on Jada Pinkett Smith’s mind before the Oscars.

Less than a week before her husband Will Smith smacked Academy Awards presenter Chris Rock for joking about his wife’s shaved head, the actress and “Red Table Talk” host posted a video on TikTok detailing her hair experience in Hollywood.

Pinkett Smith, who has been open about her hair loss due to alopecia, shared that she doesn’t “give two craps what people think of this bald head of mine.”

Captioned “Crown Act Be proud of your crown #iamnotmyhair #hairjourney,” the video starts with Pinkett Smith recalling how she’d had some “definite hair regrets” and saying “being a Black woman and dealing with hair in Hollywood, in the era I came up in, having your hair look as European as possible was always the thing.”

“And that was really challenging, you know, because I liked my hair out wild and curly,” she said. “But nobody wanted that.”

Instead, the “Matrix” star said she would have to style her hair in ways that didn’t “feel natural” because she was “trying to play the game” in Hollywood.

For magazine covers, the request would often be for Pinkett Smith to have her hair “straight and flowy” which was “not really what my hair likes to do.”

“So I had to learn to get the courage to go, ‘Nah, I’m not doing that,'” she said. “Which is why I feel the freedom today — I don’t give two craps what people think of this bald head of mine. Because guess what? I love it.”

On Monday her husband apologized to Rock for striking him.

The Crown Act, which stands for “Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair,” bans race-based discrimination involving natural hair styles. It recently passed the US House.

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