MadameNoire
Source: Eric McCandless / Getty
You probably never sat around thinking about what Tyra Banks‘s real hair looks like, but because the star decided to show it off, we’re going to let you know about it anyway.
The 47-year-old TV personality took to Instagram this week to reveal her hair, which is brown with blonde ends for a chic ombre dye job. That’s some experimentation many of us would save for wigs (which Banks has worn for many years). As she showed off her full bra strap-length hair, she did her signature smize in the image, captioning it “Yes. #MyRealHair.”
This isn’t a first for Banks, though. She’s shown us her hair in different ways on her Instagram over the years, including wet, sitting on top of her head (and not in a top-knot way) and all over her face. But she also showed off her own hair more than a decade ago (though not necessarily in its natural state) while still hosting The Tyra Banks Show in 2009. It was sleek and pulled back as she told viewers about her hair journey.
“Let’s talk about my hair right now. I know it’s been a big mystery. I was like, ‘It was an unsolved mystery’ and I felt like I needed to solve this mystery. I’ve worn weaves, and wigs, and pieces and clip-ons and clip-outs and clip downs and around since I was 17, 18 years old,” she told the audience. “And I wanted to show the real me. I wanted to show the raw me. I just got out of the shower, beat the face first of course y’all, and came out of here on this stage and this is me, y’all.”
She also wore cornrows on the show while having a conversation about the “good hair” debate.
And if that weren’t enough, she wore her real hair during an appearance on Larry King Live in 2009 while talking about how “liberating” it was to go without extensions for the first time on her show. She even let the late King put his hands in her mane so he could feel “real Black girl hair.” All of these attempts to not hide her real hair, whether in its natural state or with chemicals, was to empower other women, according to the star.
“I mean, hair for Black women, we spend $9 billion a year on hair products — Black women do. So growing up as a young girl and seeing images in the media where they’re saying that a certain type of hair is beautiful and yours isn’t is very difficult for a Black woman — for Black women and it’s a — it’s a long, political thing that we can do a whole show about,” she told King. “But I felt it was my responsibility to show as much of my real hair as possible.”
