Coco Gauff has responded to on-line criticism of her natural hair following a shoot for vogue label Miu Miu, which has co-designed some of Gauff’s tennis kits the previous couple of years.
“To all the young Black girls out there who have kinky hair like me, do what you want to do with your hair,” the two-time Grand Slam champion mentioned.
Gauff, 22, posted pictures from a shoot for Miu Miu’s Vivant bag Apr. 2, which, she mentioned in her video posted Apr. 9, was “literally me and my social person in my parents’ back yard.”
The shoot was coordinated to match the model’s model of an on a regular basis or minimal aesthetic, Gauff mentioned, which for her manifested as sporting her 4C hair — as categorized on a scale which goals to measure the tightness, curl form and curl density of hair — naturally.
In response to the shoot, some commenters labeled it “unkempt” and drew comparisons to “civil-rights-era” hairstyles.
Gauff, who wore her hair equally underneath a baseball cap throughout her run to final month’s Miami Open closing, mentioned in her video that her hair selections are intertwined with being an athlete. In a report for The Athletic final fall, Black British ladies’s footballers, together with Manchester City’s Khiara Keating and Tottenham’s Jessica Naz, outlined how some extra elaborate types require intensive planning and prolonged appointments, which could be incompatible with their schedules.
@cocogauff♬ original sound – Coco Gauff
“I personally don’t like to slick back my hair super-sleek, because it does damage my hair,” she mentioned.
“I do play tennis, so most of the time when I’m wearing it in a bun, I choose to allow my hair to be and to present in its 4C self, because I do have 4C hair. … I don’t want it to be super-slicked-back, because it’s just not good for my hair.”
She went on to encourage folks to specific themselves as they see match, by means of the total spectrum of Black hair, simply as Gauff has performed all through her profession on and off the court docket.
“If you want to straighten your hair, permanently straighten your hair, perm your hair. If you want to wear your hair afro, wear your hair afro. If you want to wear braids, wear braids. If you want to wear cornrows, wear cornrows. If you want to slick back your hair to the Gods, slick it back; if you don’t and you just wanna put it in a bun, put it in the bun.”
And whereas Gauff mentioned that the criticism did “knock a diva down,” she “got back up” shortly.
“Black women are beautiful. Black hair texture — kinky, Afro hair texture — is beautiful,” she mentioned.
Gauff, the world No. 3, is getting ready for a vital half of her 2026 season. She final yr reached the ultimate in all three of the largest clay-court tournaments — the Madrid Open, the Italian Open in Rome, and the French Open — winning the latter over world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka in a memorable closing.
The first begins Apr. 20 in the Spanish capital.
