Olympic Champ Gabby Douglas On Painful Hair Journey

Gabby Douglas was the first African American to win Olympic individual all-around gold. She was also the 1st gymnast to win gold in both the individual all around AND team competition at the same Olympics. Yet, all people wanted to talk about was how her hair looked. Gabby took to her Instagram to open about that moment. What many didn’t know was that her hair was damaged from the tight way gymnasts wear their hair. She had a bald spot in the back of her head and was very self conscious of it. She then had to cut her hair off. She said she cried a lot. She was so upset she didn’t even want to go to the gym. She couldn’t understand why her hair was the topic of two Olympics as she was winning and killin it! She took to Instagram to show off her now long beautiful hair. She wrote, no extensions, no clip-ins, no wigs, no chemicals-all me. This is the second story this week of people being critical of celebs and not knowing or understanding what they were going through.

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from the heart from a very young age i always had to put my hair in a tight ponytail to do gymnastics and due to that my hair became completely damaged. i had bald spots on the back of my head. i was so embarrassed and self-conscious that i put a bunch of clips over the spots to try and cover them up, but it was still noticeable. my hair grew a little, but shortly after, i had to cut all of my hair off because it was so damaged. i cried and cried and cried. most days i didn’t even want to go to the gym because i felt so embarrassed that all my hair was gone. i used to think: why can’t i have healthy hair? despite yet another challenge, i kept going. fast forward to the both olympics and my hair was the topic of conversation 🥺 now here i am today – no extensions – no clip-ins – no wigs – no chemicals – all me. 💕

A post shared by Gabby Douglas (@gabbycvdouglas) on Sep 3, 2020 at 1:39pm PDT

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