I went travelling in Venezuela with some friends when I was 22 and had a turning point. We’d been on this really long road trip and got to a beautiful place by the ocean where we were going to camp and everyone wanted to go skinny-dipping. In that moment I just decided: ‘I’m gonna do this. I’m just gonna take my wig off.’ I felt the most free I’ve ever felt.
When I got back to the US, I kept wearing the wig for a couple more years until I moved to Chicago at 25. And once I did, I started being like: ‘Actually, you are good looking.’ And when I felt beautiful, other people started to notice… and I started getting a lot of dates. All that stuff started happening once I decided for myself I was beautiful.