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Oscar presenter Chris Rock’s joke about Jada Pinkett Smith’s hair loss during the 94th Annual Academy Awards made her husband, legendary actor Will Smith, lose his cool as he walked onstage and slapped Rock, leaving everyone around shocked. Smith’s violent reaction and Rock’s tactless joke both didn’t go down well with those present and the viewers even as the episode overshadowed the Oscars award ceremony.
For the uninitiated Jada Pinkett Smith has been struggling with a medical condition called alopecia areata which leads to acute hair loss, generally in patches, at times causing complete baldness on scalp or even body in many cases.
An automimmune condition, alopecia areata occurs when body’s white blood cells start attacking the cells of hair follicles, which leads them to shrink and slow down hair production.
Jada has been quite vocal about her hair loss condition and first spoke about it in 2018 saying it was terrifying to deal with it when it first started. She also shared a video on Instagram in December last year captioning it as: “Mama’s gonna have to take it down to the scalp so nobody thinks she got brain surgery or something Me and this alopecia are going to be friends period! (sic).”
“Now at this point, I can only laugh. You all know I’ve been struggling with alopecia and just all of a sudden one day, look at this line right here. Look at that. So it just showed up like that and this is going to be a little bit more difficult for me to hide. So I thought I’d just share it so y’all are not asking any questions,” Jada has said in the video.
Alopecia areata is a medical condition in which there is acute hair loss, which usually occurs in patches. This leads to patchy baldness.
“The reason is mostly autoimmune, which means that our body’s own immune system attacks the hair follicles leading to hair loss. It can be genetic in origin and can occur at any age group. Good thing is that it is often self limiting and can resolve on its own. In cases where the hair fall is significant, treatment includes use of steroids and other immunosuppressants,” Dr Shraddha Despande, Consultant Plastic, Reconstructive & Aesthetic Surgeon, Wockhardt Hospital, Mumbai Central.
