We’ve heard of some the negative experiences Black actresses go through while working in theater from time to time. But the latest horror story from actress Nike Imoru will have you appalled and in shock once again.
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Her story revolves around the 2025 production of “The Odyssey” that was taking place at Harvard University’s American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Mass. While there, Imoru said she was made to get cornrows in her hair as required for her role.
However, instead of bringing along a licensed hairstylist who could properly do the style, according to CBS News, she was put in the hands of a backstage worker at the suggestion of the theater who she said “had never been retained by A.R.T. in the capacity of a licensed or qualified hair technician.” Meanwhile, several of the white actors on set were given qualified hairstylists to accommodate for their hair needs.
As a result, Imoru was subjected to tight braids on her scalp that resulted in pain and eventually extreme hair loss. She said that the worker used to wrong type of hair extensions that left her with “intense pain” and “red welts” on her scalp.
“I did not sleep that night. I slept sitting up, lying, sitting upright. Because of the pain and the tension, I took tablets that didn’t relieve it,” she explained per CBS News. “I was confident that a theater of that stature would have qualified, experienced people to do my hair, to do textured hair.”
Given the pain and uncomfortability she was experiencing, they decided to take the cornrows out her head, but that also proved to be an uncomfortable and distressing situation that saw her a large amount of her “fragile natural hair” to come out, PEOPLE noted.
To remedy the issue, she sought out an urgent care provider who eventually told her she had “traumatic loss of hair.” A Black dermatologist later suggested a laser scalp treatment and later performed a biopsy on Imoru’s scalp. The result of that biopsy? “Measurable loss of follicles caused by trauma to the scalp resulting in traction alopecia consistent with repeated pulling on the hair.”
Now as a result, Imoru has filed a lnew awsuit against the A.R.T., citing claims of racial discrimination, “permanent hair loss and painful scalp damage, severe emotional distress, depression and panic attacks.” Imoru alleged that the theater violated both the CROWN Act and the Actors’ Equity Association (“AEA”) agreement that “requires a theater to provide an actor with a licensed and qualified hair technician.”
In a statement to PEOPLE, Imoru said of her experience: “I was in excruciating pain. I was in such profound shock that I lost a sense of who I was, because my hair is so much a part of who I am. It’s a body part, and it started to shed over the rest of the period I was there until there was nothing except patches left on my head. As a result, I’m suffering permanent hair loss.”
She later added, “I believe that the American Repertory Theater is not upholding the values they claim to have around Race. There were contractual safeguards to prevent this kind of injury. But those safeguards weren’t followed. Textured hair requires particular types of care, and I don’t think that was followed through because we had two different disparate sets of treatment.”
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