Serayah McNeill From Empire Talks Natural Hair

Raise your hand if you watched Empire last night? Believe it or not, not everyone watched the hit show even though it seemed like the whole world was tuning in and making memes at the same time.

One of the characters in Empire is a curly girl. Serayah McNeill plays one of the artists signed to the Empire Record Label and the love interest to one of the sons.

We noticed from the first season that this girl had some serious curls and her hair has sparked more than enough curiosity so much so that right after Empire aired last night Vogue decided to release an interview where they talked about everything including her natural hair.

Of course I read the whole thing and one of the things that struck me was that the popularity of her curls which was something that surprised Serayah herself. Peep a portion of the interview below:

Your character also wears natural curls—you’re part of a growing number of young black actresses who are wearing their hair naturally on-screen: Tracee Ellis Ross, Kerry Washington. How do you feel about this surge?

I never thought about it until after the first episode aired and that became the “thing” about my character, and I thought, Oh! I guess that is a little different for TV!

I’ve seen a lot of people with curly, big hair, but I guess it really doesn’t exist on TV for African-American women. Being a part of it is really important because it does represent something bigger than I thought—how people perceive celebrities and then how young black girls perceive black actresses.

Everything they like about these celebrities is that the actresses are being themselves. I think that’s the biggest message of it all.

How do you decide what to do with your hair for red carpet events? You seem to have chameleonic properties, going from bone straight at the MTV Video Music Awards and to a huge curly ponytail at the Billboard Music Awards.

I’ll be inspired by something, whether it’s an era or a certain piece of clothing. But I think now my hair is going to be pretty much curly. It’s my thing, and I think it works best for me and the way that my fans see me. I will always revert to [it]; that’s the natural state of my hair.

We missed Serayah in this weeks episode of Empire but she popped in on Instagram to say she would be back next week! Read the rest of her interview here.