If you've been keeping up with actress Gabrielle Union on her social media lately, you’ve probably seen how she's been embracing motherhood of her beautiful baby girl, loving life as a married woman to Dwayne Wade, and see how the "Deliver Us from Eva" actress has been rocking her natural hair. She looks amazing, but years ago, you wouldnt've been able to convince her of that.
As a matter of fact, in a first-quarter 2021 interview with PEOPLE, the 48-year-old admits years ago, she wouldnt've been caught dead rocking her beautiful, short natural curls.
“When I was younger, I hated everything about [my hair]. I wanted it to be anything but what it was,”
Union said. “I wasted so much of my youth in my twenties, thirties, and certainly my teens wanting to be someone else. I was inundated with images and messages saying,
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‘You’re just not as pretty as so-and-so.’”
Union went on to explain that the lack of representation on screen and in media not seeing Black women represented in the media led her to believe she didn’t have what it takes to be successful.
“The images that I saw on TV and in magazines and film reaffirmed what they were saying. That I wasn’t ‘it’, and people who look like me aren’t ‘it’,” she said. “You couldn’t possibly have that ‘it factor’ and have hair like mine or skin like mine.”
It wasn’t until her 40s that she learned to embrace her innate beauty.
“In my early forties, I just emptied my basket of f*cks and came out... reborn and loving myself in a way that you only see on Oprah episodes when you’re like, ‘What the hell is my most authentic self? What does that even mean? I don’t even know who that girl is. I wouldn’t know her if I saw her,’” she said.
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A “deep dive” into therapy, doing “internal work,” and lots of traveling eventually led her to embrace that “beauty comes in every kind of form”
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Lately, you'll see Union with an even shorter 'do. This style, she described, she did on her own terms:
"So, I did a thing," Union wrote, along with the smiling, blushing and waving emoji. "The movies always show women cutting their hair when all is lost but I wanted to know the feeling of making a change when things are gravy."
Union acknowledged what a big change the cut is for her, but made it clear that she is absolutely loving her new look.
"It hits different and its foreign to me but I ❤❤❤ this new new," she add, along with the hashtags "#SummerChop, #FlawlessChop, and #FlawlessCut."
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This newfound self love is something that Union is trying to instill in her daughter and whole family.
Entertainment Tonight spoke with Union and husband Dwyane Wade back in May, where they opened up about pushing their kids to be their "authentic selves." The couple share 2-year-old daughter Kaavia. Wade is also father to 19-year-old son Zaire, 14-year-old daughter Zaya, and 7-year-old son Xavier.
Reflecting on their children's accomplishments and aspirations, Union said with a smile, "We cry a lot. Or, well, I cry a lot."
"We're very proud, and I think what we're most proud of is what we're trying to do with them. You know, we try to push with them, we try to push [them to be] their authentic selves," Wade shared. "We're not trying to make them wear a mask or be someone that they're not... we've done that since Zaya was three years old and we'll continue now that Kaavia is two years old."
