Ranvir Singh has opened up about her personal experiences of living with alopecia in the wake of Jada Pinkett Smith’s own battle coming to the fore after the now-infamous Oscars slap.
In case you missed it, Jada’s husband Will Smith stormed the stage at the awards ceremony and slapped comedian Chris Rock after he made a joke referring to Jada’s hair, likening her to the fictional action character GI Jane, who shaves her head.
Jada has previously spoken out about suffering from alopecia, an autoimmune disorder that causes hair loss.
Ranvir, who was standing in for Lorraine Kelly on ITV this morning, discussed the condition with Dr Amir Khan, who revealed eight million women in the UK suffer from hair loss.
She said: ‘Me [being] one of them – I can show you. We were at Thorpe Park on Mother’s Day and I feel dreadful about the photographs because your hair’s going backwards.
‘I’ve always had a fringe, I’ve found ways to cover it, I use coloured sprays and things. I’ve got a patch in the middle, I’ve got a patch at the back.’
To illustrate, Ranvir lifted an area of her hair back to reveal a bald patch.
She added: ‘It started when my dad had a heart attack and when he died, when I was eight or nine, and it’s never come back, so I understand a little bit of the real discomfort you live with having it.
‘If anything, it’s certainly made us talk about what it is, which at the expense of Jada, Will and Chris, somehow at least we are talking about this and women know that they’re not alone.’
In 2018 Jada revealed she suffered from the condition in an episode of Red Table Talk, where she admitted ‘having issues with hair loss’, and described her situation as ‘terrifying’.
She said: ‘It was one of those times in my life where I was literally shaking with fear.’
She added that she had chosen to continue cutting her hair as a way of dealing with the sudden hair loss.
In July 2021 Jada debuted her buzz cut in an Instagram post captioned: ‘Willow made me do it because it was time to let go.’
Will has since apologised for his behaviour at the awards ceremony, saying he had reacted ’emotionally’ to the joke by Chris, saying that ‘violence in all its forms is poisonous and destructive’.
It was later claimed that comic Chris wasn’t aware of Jada’s struggles with alopecia before he made the joke.
According to TMZ, sources claimed Chris had no idea Jada had alopecia and insisted he ‘doesn’t have a mean bone in his body’
On the day of the viral moment, Will was in tears as he collected his Oscar and then apologised to the Academy and his fellow nominees for his actions, and his wife nodded her approval as the King Richard star said: ‘Love will make you do crazy things.’
Lorraine airs weekdays from 9am on ITV.
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