Jada Pinkett Smith says having alopecia forced her to 'see the beauty of myself beyond my aesthetics'
The Red Table Talk host says Jada Pinkett Smith's alopecia diagnosis has been "a great teacher." Jada Pinkett Smith's baldness,
which is caused by alopecia, an autoimmune disorder that causes hair loss, may have been the butt of a Chris Rock
joke that enraged husband Will Smith and ruined last year's Oscars. The 51-year-old actress discussed how having
alopecia has altered her perceptions of what it means to be beautiful as a Black woman in an interview with the Guardian.
She told the U.K. daily, "It's been a hard one, a terrifying one - because specifically as Black women,
we connect so much of ourselves with our hair." "And it was frightful. I had to look really deep inside of myself to discover my true beauty.
When you reach my age, you become so at ease in your own skin and confident in who you are that you stop caring about what other people think,
she continued. Elders deserve that. People did comment extensively on Rock's hair loss as a result of her joke and her husband's enraged response to it.
Despite the comedian's denial that he was aware the actress had alopecia, many reacted negatively to his
comparison of her appearance to that of Demi Moore's in the 1997 movie G.I. Jane, in which Moore shaved her head to portray a female Navy SEAL recruit.