Tessica Brown, a 40-year-old Louisiana native, went viral online after posting a video explaining that she had applied Gorilla Glue to her scalp to style her hair and attach a ponytail. The video was uploaded to TikTok earlier this month after the young woman sought help to remove the glue. The situation was so outlandish and Brown so charismatic, that the video quickly amassed millions of views and shares that now total over 25 million.
Unfortunately, Brown became knows as “Gorilla glue girl.” What followed was a month-long saga with a dedicated community of fans wishing to see if she could rid herself of the glue and out of a very sticky situation.
Tessica Brown earned the nickname “gorilla glue girl” online after she shared a video about how the glue seemed permanently stuck to her hair and scalp.
@im_d_ollady Stiff where????? Ma hair ????????
♬ original sound – Tessica Brown
“Stiff where? Ma hair!” Brown exclaims at one point in the viral video that catapulted her into internet stardom.
“For those of y’all that know me, know that my hair’s been like this for about a month by now,” she says at the beginning of the TikTok. “It’s not by choice. No. It’s not by choice.”
She goes onto explain that she ran out of her usual product, göt2b Glued Blasting Freeze Spray, and instead turned to a Gorilla Glue product that’s not intended for use on hair.
“Bad, bad, bad idea. My hair? It don’t move,” she goes on in the video and says that she washed her hair fifteen times and her hair will still not move and the glue still does not come out.
In a follow-up video, Tessica Brown shared that she was still struggling to get the product out of her hair.
@im_d_ollady It don't move I hate it here
♬ original sound – Tessica Brown
The next installment of Tessica Brown’s hard-hair journey begins in silence with the woman vigorously rubbing shampoo into her hair. She really, really scrubs! But, to no avail.
“Look, you wipe it off and nothing happens,” Brown says as she shows that the glue has formed an impenetrable helmet of hair on her skull. “This is the life… this is the life that I guess I’m going to have to live…” she says, fighting back tears.
Visibly upset, it was clear that Brown would need to take other steps than just shampoo to solve her glue issue.
The visibly upset woman touched people’s hearts as it could have happened to any of us. Well, at least we can all empathize with doing something risky “in a pinch” and regretting it after. At any rate, people became immersed in Brown’s hair drama to the point of one beauty reporter, Darian Symoné Harvin, documenting the process in a complete timeline in her Beauty IRL newsletter.
Brown tried soaking her hair, using tea tree and coconut oil, and many other possible solutions. Unfortunately, they did not take.
Gorilla Glue, lobbied by fans of Brown and simply seeing her predicament blow up released a statement on Monday.
We are very sorry to hear about the unfortunate incident that Miss Brown experienced using our Spray Adhesive on her hair. We are glad to see in her recent video that Miss Brown has received medical treatment from her local medical facility and wish her the best. pic.twitter.com/SoCvwxdrGc
— Gorilla Glue (@GorillaGlue) February 8, 2021
“We are very sorry to hear about the unfortunate incident that Miss Brown experienced using our Spray Adhesive on her hair,” the company Tweeted. “We are glad to see in her recent video that Miss Brown has received medical treatment from her local medical facility and wish her the best.”
The “medical treatment: Gorilla Glue refers to in the tweet uses the verb “has” but Brown was in consultation with a surgeon who was explaining that it would require 20 hours to complete their recommended treatment.
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In the latest turn of events, that we have not independently confirmed, Brown posted on her Instagram page that she was flying to LA to see a plastic surgeon and to get the glue removed.
TMZ reports that she is planning to undergo treatment with Dr. Michael Obeng, and it will apparently take 2-3 days to complete the very lengthy procedure. The pricetag? An estimated $12,500.
A bright spot in all of this can be found in the GoFundMe fundraiser that cropped up after it became clear Brown would need to cover the cost of medical treatment. Currently, $19,000 has been raised for her treatment which we hope will cover the burden of her plastic surgery.
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