The celebrities who have opened up about battling alopecia after Melanie Sykes revealed condition caused 'two-thirds' of her hair to fall out

was praised last week after opening up about her battle with hair loss, opting to shave her head after alopecia resulted in her losing 'two-thirds' of her hair. 

The TV presenter, who first opened up about her battle with alopecia in April last year, posted images showing the extent of her hair loss, with fans praising her for bringing awareness to the condition.

It's reported that 2 percent of the global population suffer from alopecia areata, the most common autoimmune form of the condition that results in patchy hair loss. 

While androgenetic alopecia is hormonally driven and represents male and female pattern baldness, affecting roughly 50 percent of men by age 50 and 40 percent of women, particularly those who are postpartum. 

Despite this, hair loss is still considered a taboo subject among many showbiz circles, with some celebrities choosing to cover up their hair loss without addressing it. 

Now, The Daily Mail reveals the celebrities who have courageously opened up about their experience with alopecia in a bid to raise awareness. 

Melanie Sykes 

Melanie, 55, first addressed her battle with alopecia in April last year after doctors spotted a bald patch on her head while investigating some health issues.

'I am experiencing alopecia and heart issues due to all that has happened over the last few months. PTSD, shock, mistreatment and malpractice,' she revealed at the time.

Melanie urged fans not to 'worry about her' amid her health woes and insisted that she has 'learnt to take care of herself' and is 'healing'.

She said: 'Life is so good, and I know it because I'm right here right now and there's nothing to fear. There is nothing to fear.

'The more I tune into faith, and believing that all is well because it is, because I'm experiencing it, so I know that it is, that it'll only get better.'

Back in December, Melanie who was the face of the Boddingtons Bitter beer advert in the Nineties, shared: 'I am not well, as you know, I've been ill all year. 

'I've got a condition. I'm losing my hair. I keep having crazy, like, all over everything, and I'm working on healing.'

On Instagram she stated that she was 'vibrating high' after 'transcending trauma', amid her battle with the autoimmune condition that's left her 'two-thirds bald' and with excessive inflammation all over her body.

Post-Traumatic Growth is the positive psychological change that some individuals experience after a life crisis or traumatic event.

She said: 'Even the most difficult times do pass, they do, and I just want to use this term post traumatic growth, it's real, you can be suffering from PTSD but still at the same time be experiencing post traumatic growth.'

'I'm in both camps because you can be both things at once, as long as I attend to myself and what makes me happy and feel grief about whatever has gone on and process it and move on from it.

'We can transcend all trauma, we can be changed, and I am living f***ing proof of that!'

Viola Davis 

In How To Get Away With Murder, one of Viola Davis' most powerful scenes showed her character - no-nonsense lawyer Annalise Keating - strip off her makeup and wig, showing her barefaced and with natural hair. 

It was a move that Viola insisted on, as she explained: 'It felt like who she was in private had to be diametrically opposed to who she was in public. And so in order to do that, I felt like I had to physically take the wig off.

'I have no eyebrows. I have eyelashes that I put on, and there was something extremely vulnerable about that act. 

'And I know it seems like a very simple act at the end of the day - but for me, that simple act really [turned into] something very powerful in the end - because what it was was someone being very, very private in public, which is absolutely the cornerstone of what we do as artists.'

Showing her character without a wig was also important on a personal level for Viola, 60, who revealed in 2014 that she's been battling alopecia since she was 28.

She told Vulture: 'I woke up one day and it looked like I had a Mohawk. Big splash of bald on the top of my head. I was like, "What is this?" 

'Until I found out it was stress related. That's how I internalised it. I don't do that anymore. My favorite saying in the world is, "The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are." I am telling you, I have spent so much of my life not feeling comfortable in my skin. I am just so not there anymore.'

Viola explained that initially she was insecure about her weight loss, so 'I wore a wig in the Jacuzzi. I had a wig I wore around the house. I had a wig that I wore to events. I had a wig that I wore when I worked out. 

'I never showed my natural hair. It was a crutch, not an enhancement… I was so desperate for people to think that I was beautiful. I had to be liberated from that [feeling] to a certain extent.' 

Yet in 2012, Viola decided to take a stand and exposed her natural hair on the red carpet at the Oscars. 

While she still wears wigs now, she explained what matters is that 'it's an option… when it used to never be an option. I had something to hide.'

Gail Porter 

Gail Porter is one of Britain's leading alopecia awareness campaigns after she developed the the chronic condition out of nowhere in 2005. 

She decided not to wear a hat or wig in order to raise awareness of the condition and became ambassador for the Little Princess Trust, a charity which provides wigs to children with hair loss.

However, work offers quickly began to dry up. 

'TV is a visual industry and they want you to look a certain way,' she later told Closer. 'The truth is I'm not pretty and I don't have hair. I'd get work offers, but then it'd go quiet.' 

Gail, 55, came to fame in the Nineties, hosting shows including Top Of The Pops, and The Big Breakfast, before becoming a favourite of the lads' mags.

But following the breakdown of her marriage to Toploader guitarist Dan Hipgrave, Gail lost her hair to alopecia while she was away filming in the US.

She said it came out of nowhere, with her long blonde locks fell out in clumps on her pillow while she slept, along with her eyelashes and eyebrows in just four weeks.

The TV star previously explained on the Sacrifice and Success podcast: 'My personality took a bit of a knock. Jobs just stopped, because you don't look the same.

''Would you wear a wig, would you mind wearing a wig?' No I don't want to wear a wig. This is how it is.'

After her TV career 'just stopped', Gail was left homeless and without money.

'I was going through a divorce, no money coming in,' she explained. 'So eventually I had nowhere to stay. It just went from bad to worse.

'Things like, what do you do? Do I drink? I've got no clue whatsoever, I don't take drugs so…'

Gail, who has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder, was sectioned in 2011 and in 2014 was left sleeping on a park bench after an unforeseen tax demand left her financially devastated. 

Now Gail has found her way back onto her feet and works with homelessness charities, while she has also started performing standup comedy. 

Matt Lucas 

Little Britain star Matt Lucas, 52, has dealt with alopecia for most of his life. 

He lost his hair in childhood following a traumatic accident when he was hit by a car while on holiday in Portugal, aged four.

Two years later, aged six, he started losing his hair in a delayed response to the shock of being knocked down, becoming fully bald over the course of one summer. 

In a column for the Guardian in 2017, Matt penned that losing his hair 'shaped his childhood' and also his career later on. 

He explained: 'Suddenly everything and anything else that I was at that age was eclipsed by the fact that I was the little boy in the town with absolutely no hair. 

'And that is how it was, from the age of six for the remainder of my youth. Right up until I became famous, my lack of hair was considered the most – perhaps even the only – notable thing about me.'

Although the actor said that his childhood was 'tough' and that he was 'mocked and bullied' because of his baldness, he said it has ultimately helped him in his career.

'Would I have had my big break as a baby in Shooting Stars if I had had a full head of hair?' he wrote.

'My baldness has made me distinctive, yet also allowed me to transform myself. Stick a wig on and I’m someone else. Swap the wig and I’m now another person.'

In 2021 at the age of 46, Matt revealed he'd been able to grow a moustache for the first time. 

Snapping a selfie, he penned: 'In lockdown 3 I grew my first ever moustache. I don’t have eyebrows so it looks a bit weird.'

Jada Pinkett Smith

Jada Pinkett Smith, 54, first opened up about her hair loss during a 2018 episode of Red Table Talk. 

Holding back tears, she explained: 'It was terrifying when it first started. I was in the shower one day and then just handfuls of hair [fell out] in my hands. I was like, "Oh my god am I going bald?"

'It was one of those times in my life where I was literally shaking with fear. That's why I cut my hair and I continue to cut it.

'I've gotten every kind of test. They don't know why. People say stress. "You do have alopecia."

'The higher power takes so much from people. People are out here who have cancer, people who have sick children.

'I watch the higher power take things every day and, by golly, if the higher power wants to take your hair. "That's it? God, do you want my hair?" When I looked at it from that perspective, it really did settle me.' 

Four years after her admission, Jada's battle with alopecia became global news when at the 94th Academy Awards, Will Smith slapped Chris Rock on stage. 

Will assaulted the comedian after he cracked a joke about Jada looking like 'G.I. Jane' because of her bald head.

In retrospect, Jada said about the incident: 'I knew it was going to be an intense reaction. And that was the moment that I decided that I was going to stay by his side.

'You know, it's funny how intense situations can amplify love, and it was a pretty difficult time, but it definitely drew us closer. So yeah, it's crazy how things work.'

In her autobiography Worthy, she added that part of her agreed with women who believed he deserved the slap, thinking to herself: 'F****** right! 'Bout time!'

She penned: 'A slight whisper of that sentiment spoke to me too and made me feel - thank you, Will, for defending me.'

Ranvir Singh

After Will and Chris' Oscars incident, presenter Ranvir Singh detailed her own experience with alopecia, saying that hair loss is not a thing to be joked about.

Parting her hair on ITV's Lorraine, Ranvir, showed off her bald patches, as she explained that she had always been insecure about her hair loss. 

She said: 'I’ve always had a fringe, I’ve found ways to cover it, I use coloured sprays and things. I’ve got a patch in the middle, I’ve got a patch at the back

'It started when my dad had a heart attack and when he died, when I was eight or nine and it’s never come back, so I understand a little bit of the real discomfort you live with having it.'

Ranvir, 48, then shared that despite the unfortunate circumstances that the condition has been brought to light, the Oscars slap had helped shed light on alopecia and sparked discussion.

She added: 'If anything, it’s certainly made us talk about what it is… and women know that they’re not alone.'

Olivia Bentley 

Made In Chelsea star Olivia Bentley bravely decided to reveal her battle with the condition on the show, explaining she had suffered with alopecia since she was a teenager. 

The reality star attempted to hide her 'bald patches and receding hairline' with hats and hairpieces after her locks began falling out when she was prescribed the contraceptive pill at the age of 16.

Yet she told Hello! magazine that she had been struggling with 'feelings of insecurity over the years' following her diagnosis.

She explained: 'I suffer from hair loss, from alopecia. It's left me with feelings of insecurity over the years, so I've tried to hide my bald patches and receding hairline by wearing hats and hairpieces, and dyeing my naturally dark brown hair blonde.

'Not enough is spoken about alopecia in women; it’s still a taboo subject we tend to hide. Now I hope that by coming forward, I will encourage other women and girls in the same situation not to feel upset or embarrassed any more'.

On MIC, Olivia was also seen breaking down to model boyfriend Digby Edgley amid fears he would leave her for a girl with 'long, flowing hair'.

Yet three years later Olivia developed the confidence to ditch her wigs after new boyfriend Tristan Phipps encouraged her not to cover up her bald patches.

She told The Sun: 'The wig was a protective thing and I wouldn’t go anywhere without it. If I ever went away, I’d have a lot of anxiety that I hadn’t packed it, but life is so much more comfortable now.

'It was like wearing a woolly hat all the time. I remember filming some days in the heat with sweat dripping down my face. Not having to deal with that any more feels liberating.'

Reflecting on her past experience with an ex, she revealed that she was dumped as he worried their children would be bald, with Olivia noting: 'I was only 17. I mean, wow, what a horrible thing to say.'

Olivia is currently single, following her split from former cricketer Rory Hamilton-Brown, and has vowed to embrace a period of celibacy. 

Ricki Lake 

Documentary maker Louis Theroux began documenting his battle with alopecia in 2023, with his hair loss starting the year before when his beard began growing in patchy