I Struggled To Accept My ‘Kinky’ Hair While Growing Up – Willow Smith

Willow Smith has spoken out about not liking her hair as a child, revealing that it made her feel insecure.

The daughter of Hollywood couple Will Smith and Jada Pinkett-Smith, Willow started acting as a child like her brother Jaden Smith, appearing briefly alongside her dad in I Am Legend (2007).

Nowadays, Willow is concentrating on other things besides acting, and during the latest episode of Red Table Talk, she opened up about colorism (discrimination or prejudice based on skin tone) and how it affects people of color.

While talking about the subject, Willow linked it to her personal experience, admitting that she used to feel insecure about her ‘kinky’ hair while growing up.

The 19-year-old currently carries a buzzcut (she cut off her hair not because of hatred for it but as a symbolic gesture of artistic expression after her 24-hour exhibit called ‘The Anxiety’ at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles).

Willow told audiences that and her family that she found it hard to accept her natural curls as a child, saying:

One of the issues for me growing up was my hair, it was always a struggle. I would look at her [my cousin’s] hair and be like ‘I’d be so much prettier if my hair wasn’t this kinky…[or if] ‘I had long hair.’’

Her mother, Jada, tried to offer an explanation to the reason she felt the way she did, stating that the “the approximation to white is what is valued around the world, it’s global.”