Today she is considered a fashion and beauty icon, but Zendaya revealed that for much of her adolescence she lived through a real nightmare with her hair.
The actress said that she started working at a very young age and that, for years, the constant use of flat irons, blow dryers, and heat tools ended up severely damaging her hair. “It was dry, brittle, and breaking off completely”, she recalled.
“The heat straightener destroyed my hair. I was only 14 years old and didn’t know how to protect it, so it took more than two years for it to grow back healthy, she added.
The situation became so complicated that she had to resort to wigs and extensions while waiting for her hair to grow back.
As she explained, the problem was not dyeing or cutting it, but rather not using heat protection and receiving direct heat practically every weekend because of her work. It took her between two and three years of constant care to restore it.
Over time, she learned to take better care of her hair and today she often alternates between her natural curls, wigs, and different styles, not because she needs to hide the damage, but because she enjoys experimenting with her image. She has also said that during her childhood she found it difficult to accept her curly hair, since it was very different from that of the other girls around her, although over the years it ended up becoming one of her greatest strengths.
Her story was a reminder that even celebrities can suffer significant hair damage and that, many times, the perfect looks we see on the red carpet hide years of recovery behind the scenes.