Sheryl Underwood recently bared her soul and her natural hair during an apology for disparaging comments she made about nappy hair two years ago.
In 2013, the wig-wearing comedian incurred the wrath of natural black hair enthusiasts when she spouted offensive hair comments on CBS’ The Talk.
The backlash began immediately after Underwood, a co-host on the talk show, piped up during the group’s discussion about model Heidi Klum’s revelation that she saves the hair of her sons, whose dad is the black singer Seal. “Why would you save afro hair?” Underwood asked her fellow co-hosts. “You can’t weave afro hair.”
She continued: “You never see us at the hair place going ‘Look, here, what I need here is, I need those curly, nappy beads…That just seems nasty.” When white co-host Sarah Gilbert said that she, too, saved her child’s hair, Underwood added that it was “probably some beautiful, long, silky stuff.”
For these statements to “come out of the mouth of a very proud black woman, I was wrong,” she said. She added: “My attempt at humor fell flat and hurt my people.”
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