Naya Rivera Is Speaking Out About Her Post-Pregnancy Hair Loss
Some celebrities won't talk about anything.
Then there's Naya Rivera, the actress and singer whose life is literally an open book. (She just released Sorry, Not Sorry, a memoir about her turbulent turn on Glee. Sample revelation: she got an abortion on her one day off from filming.)
When she called us to discuss her latest project-she's the new spokesmodel for Nioxin, the hair regrowth brand-we figured we could ask the 30-year-old anything. So we did.
Nioxin is often associated with balding men. But hair loss happened to you post-pregnancy, right?
Yeah, and it happened to a lot of my friends, too! There's a real post-partum hair-thinning issue, and nobody talks about it because women are so embarrassed to admit they're losing their hair. But it's a real problem. The good news is, it has a really easy solution. You just have to know about it.
Hair loss must be a real bummer after nine months of long, luscious, insane hair during pregnancy.
Well, I hate to tell you this, but pregnancy hair is different for everyone! It's a wide spectrum. I didn't get crazy thick amazing hair at any point during my pregnancy. I was expecting it, and waiting for it, and it never happened. I was like, "Where is my awesome part of the pregnancy bargain?" I didn't grow some amazing mane. On top of that, with the dramatic drop in hormones that comes with breastfeeding, and then not breastfeeding, and the whole birth process, the parts around my scalp were thinning and breaking, and nothing seemed to repair them. I heard about Nioxin from my friends who'd had babies before me, and whose hair stylists had told them to use it. They told me to use it. And now I feel like I need to tell everyone, because some moms don't have that network.
Hair loss can also happen to competitive dancers, because their elastics are so tight. You had a signature Cheerios ponytail during 'Glee'-was your hair breaking off then?
It was! I would be working 16 hour days, which is normal for TV, and my hair would be in a tight ponytail that whole time. They kept spraying it with hairspray, and when I got home, it looked and felt like dried lasagna. Above my ears, it looked like it had been burned off with a hair iron or something. And my scalp was so dry from heat styling.
What did you do?
I tried everything. Tea tree oil, grapeseed oil-all the oils. I could never find a shampoo that wouldn't break and dry it out. Finally, I got to the point where, if I knew I was doing a ponytail day, I would basically coat my hair in coconut oil the night before. And to this day, I'll do that before a ponytail day. Seriously. It requires a lot of prep.
What do you wish you'd known before you became a celebrity?
You know, when I was 13, my mom asked me, "Naya, are you ready for fame? Are you ok with this?" She was a model and an actress. I'd been doing commercials since I was a baby, and TV since I was a very little kid. And I said, "Bring it!" And now I would be like, "No, don't bring it so much! Like, be a little cautious. It's not that awesome. Tone it down a few notches."
Oh, come on. I bet being famous is totally that awesome.
There are some downsides. The loss of [privacy] and how things can move so fast… As a kid, I wanted to act so badly that I wasn't even aware that being a working actress comes with so much more responsibility and more challenges than just, "Be a great performer." It's a growing experience. The older I get, the more I realize that.
There's a YouTube clip of you on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. How old were you?
I was seven!
Do you remember anything about shooting the show?
I do, actually! I remember, it was the first day of spring, and I was sitting with my mom outside, but I didn't know I was sitting in front of Will Smith's dressing room. He came out, and saw me, and stopped and he says, "Hi, how are you?" And I'm this little kid, and I'm freaking out because the Fresh Prince is talking to me. He said I was pretty. That was my crowning moment. I peaked at seven. There's nothing left to do!
What is left to do?
I want to move into more of the writing and producing space. I think creatively that's really fulfilling for me. I want to tell stories that haven't been told yet, and I have a lot left to say... I've been really lucky to learn from some of the best people to ever [write TV and movies]. And I think it's my turn soon.
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