Tracee Ellis Ross to team up with Oprah Winfrey for documentary series around black hair

The 'black-ish' actor described 'The Hair Tales' as a 'love letter to black women'

Tracee Ellis Ross and Oprah Winfrey are teaming up for a new TV show about black hair. AP

Tracee Ellis Ross has announced a new documentary series exploring black women’s hair experiences.

The Black-ish actor will executive produce the series, titled The Hair Tales, alongside Oprah Winfrey and Michaela Angela Davis. The entire team behind the show will be made up of women of colour.

“Like many women, I can trace my own journey to self-acceptance through my hair,” Ellis Ross said. “This series is personal and universal, American and global. It is a love letter to black women.”

She added “there is a story in every curl, coil and kink of our hair. This show will be a dynamic adventure through these stories of ancestry and innovation, politics and pop culture, ritual, resilience and revolution, but [will] mostly reveal humanity. It will affirm black women, inform others and inspire everyone.

“Hair is a portal into the souls of black women, it drives straight to the centre of who we are. Our goal is to share this vibrant community, where we hold a sacred space for each other.”

The series comes as 12 US states passed the Crown Act (Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural hair) into law, which bans workplace discrimination based on hairstyles.

Ellis Ross has been a long-standing advocate for celebrating natural hair. In 2019, she launched Pattern Beauty, a haircare line designed for black hair.

“The [natural] hair movement might be new for a lot of people, in that it is infiltrating and penetrating all aspects of the beauty industry and beauty culture, and changing people’s understanding of our beauty and our glory, but we have been beautiful and glorious forever,” she told Entertainment Weekly in 2019. “We [must] continue to speak up … to change the understanding that influences policy [such as the Crown Act]. Culture influences policy.”

While a release date for the show is yet to be revealed, it will premiere on Hulu in the US, and on Disney+ streaming service internationally.