Beyoncé's pixie cut is at the top of the list of shocking transformations in celebrity hair history.
When the singer shared her new hairstyle on Instagram on August 3, 2013, she almost deactivated the social media platform. Yes, she looked amazing (she's Beyoncé, she always looks amazing), but the cropped cut left her fans wondering what the motivation behind this massive change was.
In a new interview with Essence, the “Texas Hold 'Em” singer finally revealed why she went from one extreme to the other.
“I remember the day I decided to just cut all my hair off,” she said. “I didn’t have a specific style in mind. It wasn’t an aesthetic decision, but it was a very big emotional transformation and metamorphosis that I went through.”
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Beyoncé, 42, went on to say that a lot of her “identity as a performer” comes from her hair – be it her long braids or her huge curls. One thing was the unifying factor: length.
“When I cut my hair, I was rebelling against being this woman that society thinks I am,” she said. “I was a new mother, and something about the liberation of becoming a mother made me want to just get rid of it all. It was a physical representation of me shedding the expectations that were placed on me. I just wanted to get rid of it.”
But not everyone around her was ready to see her lose so many inches. Her hairstylist Neal Farinah, who “freaked out,” Beyoncé revealed, “because [my hair] was really long, really fat and really healthy.
She continued: “I just took the scissors and chopped it off. It was very intentional. And it was exactly what I needed to do. And after that I became super brave. It was the first step to many more courageous decisions I made.” My life and career have led to who I am now.
The Grammy-winning singer, who recently announced that her latest album, a country music collection called Act: II, will be released on March 29, will also officially debut her hair care line, Cécred, tomorrow. She first teased the line earlier this month, writing on Instagram: “Hair is sacred. The journey begins on February 20th. Visit CECRED.COM.”
The clip first shows a group of women working in a hair salon in footage projected onto a draped screen in a dark room. The salon is named Headliners Hair Salon, after the salon that Beyoncé's mother, Tina Knowles, opened in Houston in 1990.
The footage then shows shots of women with different hair textures having their hair washed and washed before heading back to the salon, as the camera zooms in on a bright neon sign indoors that reads “Headliners La Mode Salon.”
In a later shot, Beyoncé is seen staring directly into the camera while washing her hair in a salon sink, before the Headliners hair salon is shown again.
The trailer ends with retro shots of Beyoncé as a child while mother Tina, 70, waves at the camera. Then it goes black as Cécred appears in white letters.
She also opened up to Essence about naming her brand after the sense of community she felt around her hair.
“I think that the connection of community, mother and child, father and child, and respect — and letting yourself be taken care of, especially for black women who are always taking care of everyone else — is all sacred,” she said.