Being A Black Woman In Hollywood Feels Like Another Job You’re Not Getting Paid For – Gabrielle Union

Seeing the strong and confident woman Gabrielle Union is today, it’s hard to believe that there was ever a time when she wasn’t so confident about her skin colour, hair or anything at all.

The 44-year-old actress tells Harper’s Bazaar that as a young girl, “I didn’t love my skin colour, I didn’t love my lips. I didn’t love my nose, I didn’t love my hair. I didn’t love anything. I didn’t love my body. Because no one was choosing me—my self-esteem was determined by somebody choosing me.”

She also opens up on what it is like being a woman of colour in Hollywood saying, “That sense of being hyper-visible or invisible on sets. When do you stand up and point out every micro-aggression, and when do you stand down so you’re not the angry black person all the time? It’s tiring. It feels like another job that you’re not getting paid for—that is all encompassing.”

She went on to talk about how badly she wanted to be white as a teenager, “I used to curl my lips. And I see pictures and I look insane, but it was me trying to minimize my blackness. It all boiled down to: I need some fool to choose me and then I can be okay with being brown.”

Read her full interview here.