During last night’s 94th annual Academy Awards, Jada Pinkett Smith was thrown into the center of a major controversy when her husband Will Smith struck Chris Rock (who was presenting the award for best documentary) onstage after Rock made a joke about Pinkett Smith’s shaved head.
Many people in the audience and at home might not have initially understood why the King Richard star was so upset by the joke, which likened his wife to having a *G.I. Jane–*style cut, but Pinkett Smith has been open about losing her hair to alopecia. Alopecia areata is an autoimmune disease in which a person’s immune system attacks healthy hair follicles, causing them to decrease in size and production, typically resulting in hair falling out in clumps, according to the Cleveland Clinic. In rare cases, an individual can lose all the hair on their head or their body, but the severity of the condition varies from person to person. For some, the hair might grow back and stay there; for another person, the hair might regrow but then fall out again later. According to the National Alopecia Areata Foundation, estimates show that up to 6.8 million people in the U.S. are affected by alopecia.
Pinkett Smith first shared her hair loss experience in 2018 during her Red Table Talk series. “I was in the shower one day and had just handfuls of hair in my hands and I was just like, ‘Oh my god, am I going bald?’” she recalled. “It was one of those times in my life where I was literally shaking in fear. That’s why I cut my hair, and why I continue to cut it,” she added. Later that month, she took to Instagram, and in a now-deleted video said she was getting steroid injections which were helping “but not curing” her condition. There’s currently no cure for alopecia, but intralesional corticosteroid injections, the type Pinkett Smith received, are the most common alopecia treatment. During this process, a dermatologist uses a very small needle to inject corticosteroids into bare patches of skin every four to six weeks. The steroids work to reduce inflammation and suppress the immune system’s attack on the hair follicles.
In mid-2021, ahead of her 50th birthday, Pinkett Smith debuted her shaved head publicly. Of course, she looked beautiful alongside her daughter, Willow Smith, who was also sporting a buzzed cut. “Willow made me do it because it was time to let go BUT…my 50s are bout to be Divinely lit with this shed,” she wrote.
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In a video she posted to Instagram in late 2021, she revealed that she had developed a line across her scalp, and wondered if she should use “rhinestones” to cover it up. “Me and this alopecia are going to be friends…period!” she wrote in the caption.
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Research has found that alopecia can be psychologically damaging for people, potentially leading to “intense emotional suffering and personal, social, and work-related problems.” This can be particularly true for women, including those assigned female at birth and those who are transgender, because of the age-old association between hair and feminine identity. Hair is undeniably woven into Black identity and history too. As such, Rock’s Oscars joke, made at the expense of Pinkett Smith and her alopecia, has triggered many Black people to share their experiences on Twitter. Some people reflected on the pain of losing their hair and dealing with the harsh transition of going from thick hair to no hair. Others weighed in on the emotional toll of living with an autoimmune disease.
According to a survey by the American Academy of Dermatology, 47% of the 5,594 Black women who responded said they experienced hair loss. There is little race-based research into alopecia available, but a 2018 study suggests there are “increased odds” of alopecia in Black and Hispanic women compared to white women. While further studies are required to “explore the mechanism of this racial disparity” in relation to alopecia, the study authors suggest that genetic susceptibility and socioeconomic factors that contribute to health disparities may play a role.
Later in the ceremony, Smith won an Oscar for his role as Richard Williams, the father of Venus and Serena Williams, in King Richard. During his speech, he apologized to the Academy and to the other nominees but did not apologize to Rock. “I want to apologize to the Academy. I want to apologize to all my fellow nominees,” he said. “I look like the crazy father, just like they said about Richard Williams. But love will make you do crazy things.”
In a statement released on Twitter, the Academy said it “does not condone violence of any form.”
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