Emmy Award-winning talk show Red Table Talk made its big return to Facebook Watch in grand fashion, talking all things hair (or lack thereof).
Jada Pinkett-Smith, her daughter Willow, and her mother Gammy were joined by their first-ever studio audience, The Bald Boss Movement Facebook Group and guests Tiffany Haddish and Yvonne Orji to discuss the motivation, trepidation, and freedom felt surrounding their decisions to go hair-free.
Haddish joined the ladies as they discussed their new Emmy-winning status, hilariously crashing the set demanding to know why Jada shaved off her hair. With the question flipped back on her, Haddish revealed that her increased spirituality while secluded in quarantine pushed her to connect with herself more deeply through letting go of her hair.
“I was reading the Bible more, checking up on the Torah and everything,” she revealed. “Everything is talking about ‘know thyself, know thyself.’ And that just kept resonating with me, and I’m like, ‘Okay’– when I hear things, I take it literal.”
Jada shared that she had a similar experience, tapping more deeply into herself and her spirituality through the experience.
“Yeah, it was just time. I was just ready for just that kind of expression and release,” she revealed. “I’m so glad I did it. It was such a beautiful experience and such a freedom. I feel more connected to myself and to the great divine in a very special way.”
For Orji and for Willow, hair traumas led to their respective decisions to go without their tresses and embrace bale beauty.
Orji had to re-learn her own hair during quarantine, and ultimately just decided freeing herself from it all worked best for her.
“I was doing press for my comedy special, and…when you’re at home, hair and makeup is not coming,” she observed. “I was raised by Nigerians. We don’t really do hair care”.
“I was looking like Krusty the Clown from The Simpsons ’cause it was growing out on the side. One day, I was like, ‘You know what? Let’s go ahead and make this thing happen.’”
Furthermore, a condition caused by constant manipulation to her scalp made it difficult to manage.
“When I lived in Harlem, that was the first time I went natural. It was like, ‘My sister, my queen. You are beautiful.’” Oriji observed of the public response to her hair. “L.A. did not love the [natural]. I was like, ‘All right, I’m gonna get a weave, and I’m gonna get it sewed in.’ Because that’s what you do in L.A. [It] was so tight…my scalp was bubbling. I had a headache every night. I finally took it off but the damage was done. Scarring alopecia.”
Take a look at the episode HERE.