Thandie Newton's Teachers Deemed Her Hair "Too Ghetto"

Thandie Newton grew up feeling different because of her hair texture and skin color. Photo: Getty Images.

The more Thandie Newton talks about beauty, the more we want to hear. As though it wasn’t enough that the English actress has an impressive resume, she’s also the co-founder of Thandie Kay, a smart and inclusive beauty blog that caters to a diverse audience. Still, we had no idea Newton could be such a beauty rabble-rouser (a compliment, in our book).

In a new interview with the Telegraph, Newton talks openly and powerfully about her personal history with beauty—the good, the bad, and the decidedly ugly. As a mixed-race child growing up in England, she was made to feel different because of her hair texture and skin color. She writes:

I remember getting ready for class photos when I was six or seven. My mum braided my hair. For her, it was the neatest, prettiest style, the equivalent of having your hair freshly cut and styled. I went to the best school in town, which was run by nuns, and they wouldn’t let me have my photo taken because of my hair. I think they thought it was a bit ‘ghetto’, though we didn’t really know what that meant. It was absolutely not ‘ghetto.’

Coupled with other heartbreaking moments—thinking she was a “mistake” when she couldn’t find foundation for her skin tone, for instance—the young Newton developed low self-esteem because she was made to feel different. Hollywood didn’t help matters. Even as she landed roles in hit movies like Crash and Mission: Impossible II, Newton tried to look “normal” by chemically straightening her naturally curly hair.

 Related: Lupita Nyong’o’s response to negativity around dark skin 

Now, however, Newton has developed a strong sense of self—along with a desire to make the beauty industry more inclusive and accepting. And, she happily notes, when her daughter heads to the drugstore, she finds more suitable products than a young Newton did.

 Related: A bald woman’s path to feeling beautiful

“I never thought, as a girl in the 1970s, that the beauty industry would become as diverse as it is now,” she writes. “But it can still go further. There will be a time when different skin tones won’t even be a discussion point: it will just be beauty, that’s it.” Until then, we’ll be listening for—and applauding—Newton’s point of view.