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Ayanna Pressley debuts bald look after revealing she has alopecia: 'I'm transparent about this new normal'

The lawmaker said that she has revealed her condition publicly because she wanted to "be freed from the secret and the shame"
UPDATED JAN 17, 2020
Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley. (Getty Images)
Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley. (Getty Images)

Massachusetts Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, on Thursday, made a public revelation that she is suffering from alopecia, an autoimmune disease that causes acute hair loss. The Representative, in a video interview with The Root, said that she wanted to "be freed from the secret and the shame" that comes with hair loss. The lawmaker, known for her signature Senegalese twists hairstyle, in the past, has been outspoken about young black girls being disciplined about their hair in schools and other institutions.

"This is my official public revealing. I have only been bald in the privacy of my home and in the company of close friends," Pressley, wearing a long, curly wig, says at the beginning of the video. The lawmaker also talked about the emotional toll the condition takes on people who suffer from it. Towards the end of the clip, she is seen dressed in yellow, without a wig. 

"I am ready now. Because I wanna be freed from the secret and the shame that that secret carries with it," she said. "And because I'm not here just to occupy space, I'm here to create it. And I wanna be free. I am making peace with having alopecia, I have not arrived there. I am very early in my alopecia journey. But I'm making progress every day."

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee member Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) attends a hearing on drug pricing in the Rayburn House Office building on Capitol Hill July 26, 2019 in Washington, DC. (Getty Images)

Alopecia areata is a condition when a person's body attacks its own hair follicles resulting in hair loss, according to the Academy of Dermatology. The condition affects nearly 6.8 million people in the United States and has a lifetime risk of 2.1 percent, the National Alopecia Areata Foundation stated. 

Pressley also opened up about how her signature twists became more than just a hairstyle and constituted a part of her personal identity and her politics. 

"My twists have become such a synonymous and conflated part of not only my personal identity and how I show up in the world, but my political brand," she said. "That's why I think it's important that I'm transparent about this new normal and living with alopecia."

Ayanna Pressley, Boston City Councilwomen and House Democratic candidate, gives a victory speech at her primary night gathering after her opponent Mike Capuano conceded on September 4, 2018 in Boston, Massachusetts. (Getty Images)

The 45-year-old lawmaker said that she first began noticing bald patches in 2019 fall while she was getting her hair re-twisted. She added that the patches quickly accelerated.

"I had been waking up every morning to sink-fulls of hair," she said. "Every night I was employing all the tools that I had been schooled and trained in throughout my life as a Black woman because I thought that I could stop this. I wrapped my hair. I wore a bonnet. I slept on a silk pillowcase. And yet and still every morning, which I faced with dread, I did not want to go to sleep because I did not want the morning to come where I would remove this bonnet and my wrap and be met with more hair in the sink."

However, despite her efforts to contain her hair fall, it was on the eve of the House's impeachment of President Donald Trump that the last of her hair fell out.

Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) speaks at the “Impeachment Now!” rally in support of an immediate inquiry towards articles of impeachment against U.S. President Donald Trump on the grounds of the U.S. Capital on September 26, 2019in Washington, DC. (Getty Images)

"I was completely bald and in a matter of hours was going to have to walk into the floor -- the House chamber, the House of Representatives -- and cast a vote in support of articles of impeachment. And so I didn't have the luxury of mourning what felt like the loss of a limb, it was a moment of transformation not of my choosing," she continued.

"And I exited the floor soon as I could and I hid in a bathroom stall. I felt naked, exposed, vulnerable. I felt embarrassed. I felt ashamed. I felt betrayed and then I also felt that I was participating in a cultural betrayal," the lawmaker added. "Because of all the little girls who write me letters, come up to me, who take selfies with me, #twistnation. And I thought of those T-shirts and I just kept revisiting them. And I immediately knew that I was going to want to, when I felt ready, go public. Because I felt like I owed all those little girls an explanation."

The Massachusetts Representative said that she had recently started experimenting with units, however, she doesn't feel like herself when she is wearing a wig.

"Right now on this journey, when I feel the most unlike myself is when I am wearing a wig. So I think that means I'm on my way," the lawmaker said. 

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