Viola Davis Talks Losing Her Hair To Alopecia And Wearing Wigs

Viola Davis of the breakout hit, “How To Get Away With Murder”, who has been vocal about her thoughts on being called “less classically beautiful,” recently opened up about her own struggles with beauty and how she balanced her health with what society thought as beautiful.

In a recent magazine interview, Davis shared her thoughts on losing half her hair at age 28 to Alopecia areata and how she would wear a wig everywhere to feel beautiful:

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“I woke up one day and it looked like I had a Mohawk. Big splash of bald on the top of my head,” she says. “I was like, What is this? Until I found out it was stress related. 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.”

Alopecia areata is a common disease that results in the loss of hair on the scalp and elsewhere on the body. There are three types of alopecia areata; alopecia areata, alopecia areata totalis and alopecia areata universalis. In all forms of alopecia areata, the hair follicles remain alive and are ready to resume normal hair production whenever they receive the appropriate signal. In all cases, hair regrowth may occur even without treatment and even after many years.

Alopecia Areata Patchy
Alopecia areata, the most common variation of the autoimmune disease, presents itself as round, smooth patches of various sizes.