Broad City’s Ilana Glazer Says She Used to Get Bullied for Her Curly Hair

Ilana Glazer’s character on Broad City may be as confident as they come, but the actress says she wasn’t always able to channel Ilana’s self-assuredness. Growing up, Glazer says she experienced her fair share of bullying because of her hair. “People would make fun of my fluffy, cotton-candy curls because everyone I grew up with had silk curtains of hair,” Glazer told Allure. “Even now, people think curls represent a joke, like, ‘She’s the wacky one!’—which I don’t believe is always true, at least not for most people.”

Glazer says her foray into comedy allowed her to see her hair in a new light. “As soon as I started doing improv and stand-up, my self-confidence changed,” she said. “I started to see my frizzy hair as a strength, not a weakness.”

As evident from Broad City, Glazer now embraces her hair. “It’s all love now,” she said. “I think my curls are dope, and I want to nourish them, not change them into something else.”