Clare Bowen explains why she cut her hair short
Claire Bowen wants little girls to know that you don't have to have long hair to be a princess.
The "Nashville" actress wrote the touching backstory behind why she cut her long locks on Facebook; she said she wants people to see past appearances and think twice before judging others.
She said she made the decision after she heard a story about a little girl.
"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," she said. "It's not what makes you beautiful either. It's your insides that count... even if you happen to be missing half of them."
But Bowen has her own personal story about hair. As a 4-year-old, Bowen was hospitalized for end stage nephroblastoma. Doctors told her parents that she would either die in two weeks, or she could undergo an experimental treatment that might kill her anyway.
"Life in the White Palace (Granddad's nickname for hospital) meant I got to grow up surrounded by children just like me," she wrote. "We 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. Those who still could, tip-toed around like little fairies because chemotherapy had destroyed the muscles in our legs and it hurt to put our heels on the floor. But we were all together, so no one's appearance came into question. No one got laughed at or teased. We were all we knew."
She continued: "And then I got really lucky. I survived, my hair grew back and I got strong again. I look relatively normal on the outside, but on the inside, I am still the same stitched back together little creature, in a world where people are judged so harshly for the way they look. It has always been completely incomprehensible to me. How can people think there's time for that?"
Bowen thanked her producers on "Nashville" for letting her change her character Scarlett's hair. She closed off her post writing, "If it makes even one person think twice about judging another, then in some small way, the world is better. Self-esteem takes a lot longer to grow back than hair."
