5 Celebrities You Didn’t Know Had Alopecia
#1. Christopher Reeve
When I think about Superman, a few things stick out. The large, yellow and red “S” emblazoned on his chest, his chiseled jaw, and — the most iconic, in my opinion — his little hair squiggle.
But as it turns out, Christopher Reeve, the actor best known for his role as the Big Blue Boy Scout in 1978’s Superman all the way through 1987’s Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, developed alopecia areata when he was only 16. It was a mild case, allowing him to comb his hair to hide it for most of his life. He did, however, wear a wig for the latter two Superman films and eventually shaved his head following the horseback riding accident that paralyzed him from the neck down in 1995.
For the rest of his life, he was a dedicated activist for those with disabilities. A supremely passionate man and cultural icon, he passed away in 2004 in New York.
#2. Keira Knightly
From Elizabeth Swann to Elizabeth Bennet, Keira Knightly has had quite a prolific career. According to her in an interview with InStyle, the constant dying of her hair to “virtually every colour imaginable, for different films” led to her losing her hair. Apparently, to the shock of the internet, she had been wearing wigs on set for half a decade, stating that it was “the greatest thing that’s ever happened to my hair.”
Although the likelihood of seeing her take to the high-seas again seems slim, Keira Knightely seems to be thriving with her two kids, Edie and Delilah, and her husband, ex-Klaxon’s keyboardist James Righton.
**Interesting note, Keira Knightely starred as the eponymous role in the 2012 adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. Anna Karenina’s lover, Count Alexei Vronsky, was played by Alopecian and Kryptonian Christopher Reeve in the 1985 adaptation.**
#3. Neve Campbell
Neve Campbell magicked and stabbed her way into the cultural consciousness with her roles in 1996’s The Craft and Wes Craven’s Scream.
At age 23, the same year The Craft and Scream were released, she began her journey with alopecia. According to an interview with The Daily Mail, “I was horribly overworked and going through a divorce. Also, I had stalkers and started receiving threatening mail. I was so distressed by it all that my hair started falling out. Life hasn’t always been a bowl of cherries.”
She has continued to have a great career, even reprising her role as Sidney Prescott in 2011’s Scream 4 (Scre4m?)
#4. Ricki Lake
The star of John Waters’ 1988 Hairspray has recently revealed that she has been living with alopecia for years, most likely due to general stress combined with the insane amount of chemicals used during the production of Hairspray. “Ever since I played Tracy Turnblad… and they triple-processed and teased my then healthy virgin hair every 2 weeks during filming, my hair was never the same. (Yes, that was all my own hair in the film.) From Hairspray to Hairless,” she said in an instagram post in which she revealed her hair loss, “In my case, I believe my hair loss was due to many factors, yo-yo dieting, hormonal birth control, radical weight fluctuations over the years, my pregnancies, genetics, stress, and hair dyes and extensions.”
According to more recent Instagram posts, she seems to be living her best life with her fiance Ross Burningham and their adorable dog Mama.
5. Viola Davis
Few actresses have stood out in recent years quite like Viola Davis. After almost two decades of work in the industry and countless iconic roles, she received world-wide recognition for her roles in The Help, the TV show How To Get Away With Murder, and her Oscar-winning performance in the 2016 adaptation of August Wilson’s play Fences.
It was with this last role that she revealed something about herself that she had been hiding for years — her alopecia. She developed alopecia areata when she was 28, and it shook her world entirely. In an interview with Vulture, she said “I woke up one day and it looked like I had a Mohawk. Big splash of bald on the top of my head.” This shook her confidence for years. According to her, she had wigs for every occasion, never showing her natural hair. This changed at the 2012 Oscars, where she appeared wigless for the first time.
Of course, she still has her wigs and uses them frequently, but as she said in the Vulture interview, “[being wigless] is an option … when it used to never be an option. I had something to hide.”
She gives one wonderful piece of wisdom as well — “My favorite saying in the world is, ‘The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.’ I am telling you, I have spent so much of my life not feeling comfortable in my skin. I am just so not there anymore.”
Viola Davis’ career is still running high, and in 2020 she starred in Netflix’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.
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