Australian actress Clare Bowen has revealed why she cut all her hair off recently, and the reason will break your heart and inspire you all at the same time.
Sharing a tell-all post with her Facebook fans, Clare begins by asking “Wanna know why I cut it all off?” before revealing the painful story which got her to this point. The Nashville star explained that when she was just four years old she was diagnosed with end stage nephroblastoma, a mass of cancer cells that grow in the kidney area.
Because of her severe condition, she grew up surrounded by children just like her in hospital, who she says were “mostly bald, all tubed, taped, bandaged up and stitched back together.”
She continued, “We were all missing parts, some obvious like eyes or legs, others more hidden, like lungs and kidneys. Those who still could, tip-toed around like little fairies because chemotherapy had destroyed the muscles in our legs and it hurt to put our heels on the floor. But we were all together, so no ones appearance came into question. No one got laughed at or teased. We were all we knew.”
Clare goes on to explain that she got better, stronger; she had survived the disease. While she said that she now looks “relatively normal on the outside”, she explained that she is “still the same stitched back together little creature, in a world where people are judged so harshly for the way they look,” something she can’t understand. “It has always been completely incomprehensible to me. How can people think there’s time for that?” she asked of the, at times, superficial world we live in.
So when Clare heard of a little girl who didn’t think she could be a princess without long hair, she wanted to make a difference. “I wanted her, and others like her to know that’s not what makes a princess, or a warrior, or a superhero. It’s not what makes you beautiful either. It’s your insides that count… even if you happen to be missing half of them,” she said.
“Every scar tells a story, every baldhead, every dark circle, every prosthetic limb, and every reflection in a mirror that you might not recognize anymore. Look deeper than skin, hair, nails, and lips. You are who you are in your bones. That is where you have the potential to shine the brightest from. It is where your true beautiful self lives.
“Thank you ABC network and particularly our creator, Callie Khouri for letting me change Scarlett’s hair, and my team, family and friends for helping me make the decision. If it makes even one person think twice about judging another, then in some small way, the world is better,” she continued. “Self-esteem takes a lot longer to grow back than hair. “
Good on Clare, and influential women like her, who are setting the standard for the new and improved way we perceive beauty.
