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Rihanna’s hairstylist says she personally requested dreadlocks for ‘Ocean’s 8’

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Barry Wetcher/Warner Bros.Rihanna fans are praising the singer for bringing a diverse representation of a black woman to the big screen in the upcoming heist film, Ocean’s 8.

It was Rihanna’s idea to wear dreadlocks to portray tech genius Nine Ball in the Ocean’s 11 franchise spin-off, according to hairstylist Yusef Williams.

“We thought it would be strong,” Williams told the fashion website Refinery29. “Her locs would maintain that tie to Africa. She’d keep her accent. She wasn’t just going to be some American girl in this movie. Nine Ball is still a Caribbean girl that just happens to be in America.”

“All in all, the locs are just really bad***,” Williams said, using a colorful phrase to describe his enthusiasm. “I couldn’t imagine her character without them.”

Before filming began, Williams met with Rihanna and Ocean’s 8 director Gary Ross “so we could all figure out who this girl is, what she looks like, what she dresses like, and how she wears her hair.”

“We had a lot of references, and dreadlocks were something that we always wanted to do,” Williams explained.  “Production gave us a lot of freedom to create her character visually and play with her look.  Gary and wardrobe trusted that we would just nail it.”

“We wanted this girl to be cool, chill, and very minimal,” he said. “She would wear the same things over and over again. But I think the one thing she probably cared about the most was her hair.”

Ocean’s 8 follows Sandra Bullock‘s Debbie Ocean, a relative of Ocean’s 11 star George Clooney‘s Danny Ocean, as she recruits a team of women thieves to help her rob the Met Ball.  It also star Cate BlanchettAnne HathawayHelena Bonham CarterSarah Paulson and Mindy KalingOcean’s 8hits theaters June 8.

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