Lupita Nyong'o's Dad Joked She Should Shave Her Head, So She Did

Most teenage girls get dramatic haircuts to explicitly rebel against their parents. Lupita Nyong’o did it because her dad joked she should.
The actress graces the cover for Allure‘s “Culture of Hair” March issue, and tackles a very appropriate subject in her interview: her love-hate relationship with her hair over the years.
Photo: Lupita & More Stars Look Fierce At Black Panther Premiere!
She explained to the mag:

“Well, I didn’t love my hair when I was a child. It was lighter than my skin, which made me not love it so much. I was really kind of envious of girls with thicker, longer, more lush hair. In my tween years, I started begging my mother to have my hair relaxed.”

Unfortunately, the Little Monsters star’s mom wouldn’t let the young teen undergo the chemical treatment and told her to wait until she was around 18.
That ruling, of course, didn’t last very long against the persistence of a teenage girl. Lupita said her dad eventually convinced her mom to let her have a more “acceptable” ‘do, continuing:

“Around 13 or 14, I had such a rough time with being teased and feeling really unpretty. My dad intervened and spoke to my mom about my hair, and she finally agreed. She took me to the salon in the middle of the school day, and I got my hair relaxed. I felt so much better because it was easier to tame. All the girls in my class had their hair relaxed. Very few had natural kink, so I felt a lot more acceptable.”

But as we all know, looking good doesn’t come cheap.
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After a few years of her parents footing her salon bills, Lupita’s dad made a suggestion:

“When I was about 18 or 19, I didn’t have a job or anything, so it was really my parents paying for my hair. So I was once asking for some more money to get my hair done and my dad joked, ‘Why don’t you just cut it all off?’ And a few months later, I thought to myself, Why don’t I? I went into the hair salon, and I said, ‘Let’s cut it off.’ It was almost a dare to myself: Can I live without hair? He shaved it right off. It was so scary but so liberating because I went completely bald.”

And now, she has an Oscar! If you can shave your head, you really can do anything!
That’s the takeaway here, right?
Anyway, ch-ch-check out Lupita’s cover (below):