‘The Vampire Diaries’: Kat Graham Said Wearing a Wig Throughout the Series Damaged Her Hair
The Vampire Diaries was a CW staple for eight seasons from 2009 to 2017. Capitalizing on the Twilight craze that swept the entertainment industry for five years from 2008 to 2011, fans of TVD still sound out about their favorite Salvatore brother and doppelgangers to this day.
Kat Graham, one of the show’s stars, played Bonnie Bennett, the best friend of Elena Gilbert (Nina Dobrev) and Mystic Falls’ resident witch.
The hair she wore on the show? Not always her natural look. It was typically a wig, and Graham recently opened up about how it damaged her hair.
Kat Graham says the entertainment industry has ‘never fully embraced’ afro hair texture
According to The Things, Graham discussed her hair routine as an aspiring actor. She would wear her hair tight against her scalp in cornrows simply because she knew a wig would go over it at some point.
For The Vampire Diaries, she wore a lace front wig that often damaged her hair. “The glue, the wig clips, and the pulling, and the braids were hard on my hair … After that, I said ‘I’m done’ … I just want to have a master fro.”
Graham said that some productions want a “certain look” that doesn’t usually include the texture of natural afro hair, TVD included. If she didn’t wear a wig, she had to straighten her hair.
Since her time on the show, the singer and actor has said the times when the industry shut down due to coronavirus (COVID-19) allowed her to embrace her hair and her haircare routine following the years of damage the wig from The Vampire Diaries has caused.
Wigs weren’t the only painful things the cast of ‘The Vampire Diaries’ tolerated
Those vampire eyes? Of course, those are done with contact lenses on the actors’ eyes.
Ian Somerhalder quipped in a video interview in the makeup chair, “I cry like a two-year-old when these things [the contact lenses] go in.” Dobrev compared her experience with the contact lenses to having 20 eyelashes stuck inside your eye all at once. Ouch!
The reason for the pain was that the lenses covered most of the eye, which didn’t leave a lot of breathing room for eye movement. So when you see the actors’ eyes tear up or turn red, that might not be fake.
While not painful, Dobrev’s contract stipulated she couldn’t wear nail polish for makeup because the actor was prohibited from changing her appearance because it could affect her character.
When will the entertainment industry learn that people are naturally beautiful?
The popularity of reality TV should teach Hollywood a lesson or two. People want to see celebrities who are real. That’s part of the reason why YouTubers and Twitch streamers are so popular and reality TV continues to have high ratings.
Kat Graham, and others like her, make valid points. They’re naturally good-looking, enormously talented, and deserve to show their true selves on screen in their roles.
What’s on tap for Graham now? Catch her on Love in the Villa streaming on Netflix, wrapping her Long Hot Summer world tour, and launching her business venture Modern Nirvana.
