The Heartbreaking Reason Maya Rudolph Hated Her Hair Growing Up

She got by with a little help from her late mother's sisters, who would occasionally visit California from Chicago and help with her hair's maintenance. "My neighbours used to say, 'We could hear you screaming across the street.' My aunties would come to town from Chicago and get the marcel iron out," she recalled.

As Rudolph entered adulthood, her hair remained a hot topic among onlookers. The actress mimicked a college student who approached her and said, "Your hair is so ethnic. Can I touch it?" She told the New York Times, "I actually have an aversion to that word, way more than people say they hate the word 'moist.' I hate the word 'ethnic' in that way. It's like they're talking about a print."

This same sentiment unfortunately continued as she garnered on-camera experience leading up to her SNL days. "Every time I'd work, they'd be like, 'I really don't — like, can I touch? — I really don't know what to do with your hair.' They would just say the most awful, disgusting things."

When Rudolph joined the SNL team — the fourth black woman to do so since the show began in 1975 — she had a hard time with getting her natural hair to fit under the wigs, so she spent a few hours each week changing its texture. She paid a visit to the hair department's blow-dry station, which was situated near the mens' dressing rooms in the studio. "Every Friday night, we'd hear some white guy walking down the hall going, 'Is something burning in here? What's burning?'" Rudolph recalled.

To read more of what Maya had to say about her childhood and her upcoming series, "Forever," read her entire New York Times profile here.