Sophia Michaels
When Doja Cat shaved her head last year, trimming away her eyebrows too, she viewed it as a blank canvas. Since then, she’s explored the creative freedom of her new look with showstopping looks at Paris fashion week, but she’s also just hung out on Instagram live without a wig or full face of makeup. In the comments on those streams and under all of her posts appear the same comparisons to when Britney Spears shaved her head in 2007.
“It’s so incredibly disrespectful for people to be minimizing what Britney went through and make a joke out of something that was very serious and a big deal in her life,” Doja Cat told Variety in a recent interview. “Every time I see a comment like that, I can’t compute what’s happening, other than it’s just an awful thing.”
When Spears walked into a random hair salon and took to her hair with a pair of clippers, the headlines that followed essentially branded her as bordering on insanity. The New York Daily News called her “Britney Shears” and the New York Post‘s read: “Shear Madness.” As we’ve learned over the past three years as Spears fought for — and won — her freedom from the conservatorship she was placed under in 2008, her decision was bound to a deeper emotional response.
During one of those Instagram lives, Doja Cat explained the simple reasoning for why she shaved her head: She just wanted to do it. “I just can’t believe it took my this long to be like, ‘Shave your fucking head,’” she said in a stream. “Because first of all, I don’t wear my hair out. You guys have seen me wear my natural hair out — I had like two eras where my hair would be out, like I would straighten it. There was a moment where it was natural and I don’t even wear it natural because I don’t feel like it. It’s just a fucking nightmare, dude. I’m over it. I’m really liking this.”
She added: “What is the use of having hair if you’re not going to fucking wear it out? I don’t even sport it, so I’m shaving it off. There’s no point. I’ve never felt so fucking happy, like… it’s very funny how much of an effect taking my hair off my head has positively influenced me.”
