The actor on beauty after self-criticism, weekly blowouts, and her postpartum routine.
"I’ve talked about this before, but I felt like an ugly duckling growing up. I come from a line of wounded women, so I carried this generational lack of self-worth. I think it’s a combination of environment and also just the soul’s proclivity toward criticism. I felt like if I could just get it right—if I was smart enough, if I looked perfect, if my hair and my edges were laid the way my mom needed them to be—then maybe I’d be loved. I think my mom being very hard on my looks is pretty common for a lot of Black families, and especially people from the South. There was so much emphasis on appearance—my body, pinching my nose so it wouldn’t widen, comments about the texture of my hair in the back. And I was already such a sensitive soul. Then on top of that, I became a dancer, which I’m so grateful for because it gave me discipline and body awareness, but it also made me extremely self-conscious."
