Cindy Crawford was 'traumatized' by a haircut as a young model. Experts explain why hair is an important part of identity.

Cindy Crawford said she was left “traumatized” by a haircut early in her modeling career.

It’s a revelation she makes in a new four-part documentary series on Apple TV+ called The Super Models, which follows the careers of Crawford, Christy Turlington, Linda Evangelista and Naomi Campbell — otherwise known as the “Big Four.” And while Crawford’s career in particular comes with many highs, having her hair chopped without her consent wasn’t one of them.

She recalled being a young model with plans of going to college when she got an exciting opportunity to head to Rome for a shoot. The photographer had made requests beforehand that Crawford cut her long hair short for the project, requests that she and her agency declined. Ultimately, her wishes weren’t followed.

“The very first night, they send the hairdresser to my room to give me a ‘trim,’” Crawford says in part one of the series, adding that the stylist then proceeded to “comb my hair, put it in a ponytail and chop my ponytail off without asking. I was in shock. And I just sat there in a hotel room in Rome crying. And if people wonder why I’ve never really cut my hair since then, that’s why. Because I was so traumatized.”

Crawford's new ’do made its debut in photos for the September 1984 issue of Italian Vogue — a great accomplishment for her at the time, although she doesn’t remember it fondly.

“It wasn’t that I didn’t like my hair short, it was that I hadn’t voted myself in to having short hair,” she says. “I really felt I was not seen as a person who had a voice in her own destiny.”

Others in the modeling industry have shared similar experiences. One incident was even caught on camera on Tyra Banks’s America’s Next Top Model. During Season 5’s infamous makeover episode, Cassandra Jean Amell, née Whitehead, had her long brown hair cut and colored into a short blond pixie. “It wasn’t just cutting an inch and a half of hair for me. It was the last straw of them completely trying to change who I was,” she said during the episode.

People outside the industry can also relate.

Jordyn Eisenpress, a lawyer in New York City, tells Yahoo Life that she was 16 when she went in for a haircut that ended up being more drastic than she intended. She recalls the hairstylist showing her how much length needed to be cut for dead ends and ultimately convincing her to commit to something shorter.

“I hated it but pretended to love it because I didn’t want to make the hairstylist feel bad. It’s not like she could have fixed it,” says Eisenpress. “I think it was just the permanency of it that made me anxious. ... It was literally years before I got it cut again, and I swear in 14 years my hair has still never grown back to the length I lost that day.”

Countless others have taken to social media to share their haircut horror stories, which have ended in tears — and years spent avoiding another hairstylist’s chair. Why? “It’s deeply distressing to get a bad haircut or a haircut that you don’t like,” says clinical psychologist Barbara Greenberg. “A person’s hair is a very strong part of their identity.”

Maddie Spear, therapist and founder of Flourish Wellness, agrees.

“Even though it might seem a little silly at first, hair matters,” she says. “Not necessarily because of hair itself having intrinsic value, but more about how it can help represent identity, presentation and even a sense of control. Hair helps dictate how we are seen in the world, along with other parts of our identity presentation.”

Feeling out of control of this visual part of identity can have a negative impact on bodily autonomy, which is how Crawford expressed feeling. “This hairstylist stripped her bodily autonomy and confidence with her appearance. It may take some time to build that trust up with anyone in regards to her hair,” Spear explains.

Not all experiences are bad, of course. In fact, having input in a decision like a drastic haircut can positively impact someone, according to experts — as well as Evangelista and Turlington, who also share their experiences in the new series.

Evangelista tells the story of getting her hair cut while working with photographer Peter Lindbergh, explaining that it wasn’t done until she had time to think it through and agree to it herself. The new look seemed to get her dropped from runways during Milan Fashion Week but ultimately scored her the cover of Italian Vogue — the first of many Vogue covers to come.

“This is the moment where I thought I made it,” she says in the second episode of the documentary. “I think that’s where I really gained confidence, and it just kept going from there.”

Alternatively, Turlington decided to cut her hair while in the middle of a contract that didn’t allow such drastic changes to her appearance.

“I realized that I really hadn’t been happy with the Calvin Klein contract. ... I sort of renegotiated my deal with Calvin by cutting my hair,” she says. “When we were cutting it … we were laughing and saying, ‘Oh, I’m gonna get in so much trouble.’ I didn’t really think I was gonna get in trouble, but it definitely was not received well.”

Greenberg says such an act of “defiance” can be freeing.

“It’s an act of taking back your power, or having control over something,” she says.