AUSTRALIAN ACTRESS AND singer Clare Bowen is well known in the States for appearing in the TV show Nashville.
She usually has long, flowing locks in the show – as you can see above.
But yesterday she posted to Facebook that she has cut it all off – and her message has been shared nearly 200,000 times.
But why? Well, two reasons. A little girl came up to her and said she couldn’t be a princess because of her short hair and Bowen’s own childhood battle with cancer.
When she posted this photo to Facebook, she wrote a powerful essay on why long hair isn’t that important:
I was really inspired when I heard a story about a little girl who said she couldn’t be a princess because she didn’t have long hair, and I wanted her, and others like her to know that’s not what makes a princess, or a warrior, or a superhero. It’s not what makes you beautiful either. It’s your insides that count… even if you happen to be missing half of them.
She referenced her own childhood cancer diagnosis, saying all the kids she grew up with were:
mostly bald, all tubed, taped, bandaged up and stitched back together. We were all missing parts, some obvious like eyes or legs, others more hidden, like lungs and kidneys… But we were all together, so no one’s appearance came into question.
Her message now is that kids with cancer should believe that their lack of hair won’t hold them back.
She then thanked her TV network ABC for allowing her character’s hair to change along with her own personal call. She ended her post with this line:
If it makes even one person think twice about judging another, then in some small way, the world is better.
