When Lisa Ray ditched the wig and ‘went all bald’ to a public event: ‘Most liberating thing I’d ever done’

A person goes through a myriad of feelings — emotional highs and lows — along with physical challenges when they are battling cancer. Each person’s journey is different and for Lisa Ray, there were many setbacks along the way, each of which she braved and set an example for others to follow.
The Indian-Canadian actor and model fought cancer and survived it not once but twice; she was first diagnosed in 2009. Ray opened up about her journey, telling the platform Humans of Bombay that when her doctor first saw her blood test report, she said: “How are you still standing? Your red blood cell count is so low that you can go into cardiac arrest any moment!”

“I’d been experiencing fatigue for months. And a few tests later, another doctor said, ‘You’ve cancer of the plasma of the bone marrow.’ At that moment, for the first time in years, I stopped and took a breath,” the 50-year-old shared, adding that prior to that she had been busy working and always “on the go”.

She added, “But while a part of me lived on the red carpet, the other craved spiritual peace — extreme ends. Like, I wanted to write a book. It helped me connect with myself. But with work, I never got to do it. But cancer changed things.”
Ray talked about it in detail in her book ‘Close to the Bone‘, which was published a few years ago. The mother-of-two further told Humans of Bombay that her stem cell surgery felt like “being close to death and being reborn”. “But it helped me appreciate the life I had. I remember writing a blog about what it is like living with cancer. Since the stigma had been so bad in South Asian cultures, coming out felt cathartic.”
Photo: Amazon.in
Ray’s story accompanied a carousel of pictures clicked during the course of her cancer journey. In most of them, she sported a buzz cut, head shaved as a result of hair loss due to chemotherapy. The actor said people appreciated her honesty. “Somehow, we all found courage in acceptance.”
“After my treatment, I once tried wearing a wig for a public event, but I found it to be ridiculous. I told myself, ‘Remove it’ and went all bald. It was all over the headlines but more than that, it was the most liberating thing I’d ever done.”
She, however, stated that the media “wasn’t always nice”. “After chemo, I was a part of a travel show with my hair short. I called it a ‘chemo cut.’ But the channel replaced me. They wanted a girl with ‘long’ hair. It was heartbreaking.”

While she went into remission soon after, Ray relapsed three years later. “Things were different then. I was getting married. I was shattered, but I took it one day at a time. My body told me what to do and I lened. I went for a three-week transformation programme. I meditated, drank juices, ate sprouts, and introspected. I healed internally. And within months, I beat cancer again and without the stem cell surgery,” she shared.

It has been nine years since then, and a lot has happened. The actor said she “did more movies, wrote a book, raised cancer awareness, had kids, and did the unthinkable: found the courage to start an art platform”. “It’s ironic how a disease that usually brings the end to us changed my life completely and made me feel more alive than anything else ever did,” she concluded.
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