Jada Pinkett Smith posted an Instagram video revealing a bald patch on her head.- The actress said it's a result of her
alopecia .
Jada Pinkett Smith shared again on Tuesday that she has alopecia areata, a disease that causes hair loss, according to the National Institutes of Health, and she has a new bald spot that she wanted to clarify for fans.
She posted a video on Instagram showing off her shaved head — which she's been rocking as a hairstyle since before this specific alopecia patch showed up — and pointing out the balding spot on the top.
"Mama's gonna have to take it down to the scalp so nobody thinks she got brain surgery or something," Pinkett Smith wrote in the caption. "Me and this alopecia are going to be friends … period!"
Angling the camera to show the top of her head, the "The Matrix Resurrections" actress pointed out a bald patch that she thought people might mistake for a surgery scar.
"Now at this point, I can only laugh," she said as she grazed the patch with her finger. "Y'all know I've been struggling with alopecia, and just all of a sudden one day, look at this line right here. It just showed up like that. Now this is going to be a little more difficult for me to hide, so I thought I'd just share it so y'all not asking any questions."
Since the patch runs horizontally just behind her hairline, she said she's going to dress it up with some rhinestones and make herself a crown.
Pinkett Smith first shared her diagnosis on a 2018 episode of her Facebook series, "Red Table Talk."
"It was terrifying when it first started," she said on the episode. "I was in the shower one day and then just handfuls of hair just in my hands."
According to the NIH, when someone has alopecia, their immune system attacks hair follicles, typically causing hair to fall out in small, round patches about the size of a quarter.
Representatives for Pinkett Smith didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.