Chap­ter 26 marks a par­tic­u­lar­ly dark peri­od of my life when every­thing seemed to be falling apart. With­out my chil­dren, I felt a pro­found sense of loss, and my world became unman­age­able. I didn’t know how to care for myself, and every day felt like a strug­gle. After the divorce, I had to leave the home I had cher­ished and found myself in a ran­dom Eng­lish-style cot­tage in Bev­er­ly Hills. The paparazzi, sens­ing vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, sur­round­ed me like sharks sens­ing blood in the water, and their pres­ence felt even more inva­sive dur­ing this time. I was drown­ing in the con­stant scruti­ny and pres­sure, and despite the exter­nal suc­cess of my career, the inter­nal chaos was con­sum­ing me.

In the midst of this tur­moil, I made the impul­sive deci­sion to shave my head, a moment that felt strange­ly cathar­tic. For a brief moment, it was like a release, a way to dis­con­nect from every­thing. The act itself felt almost spir­i­tu­al, as if I was shed­ding the old ver­sion of myself. How­ev­er, the reper­cus­sions of this act were imme­di­ate and relent­less. To try and regain some sem­blance of con­trol, I pur­chased sev­en wigs, all short bobs, to hide my shaved head. But even though I sought iso­la­tion, the paparazzi still found me. When I vis­it­ed Kev­in’s place to try and see my chil­dren, it wasn’t a qui­et moment of recon­nec­tion but an oppor­tu­ni­ty for the media to exploit my grief. A pho­tog­ra­ph­er, tipped off about my vis­it, began snap­ping pic­tures relent­less­ly. As I sat in the pas­sen­ger seat of the car, heart­bro­ken, wait­ing for my cousin Alli to return, I was asked intru­sive ques­tions by the pho­tog­ra­ph­er. They kept press­ing, relent­less­ly ask­ing me how I was doing, mak­ing it clear that my suf­fer­ing was just a com­mod­i­ty to be exploit­ed.

After leav­ing Kevin’s house, we were still fol­lowed by the pho­tog­ra­phers, who didn’t stop until they got the footage they want­ed. The sit­u­a­tion esca­lat­ed fur­ther when they con­tin­ued to approach the car, with one of the pho­tog­ra­phers insist­ing on ques­tion­ing me despite my obvi­ous dis­tress. Alli plead­ed with them, ask­ing them to leave us alone, but their dis­re­gard for her pleas only inten­si­fied the ten­sion. The more I tried to avoid them, the more they pushed, sens­ing that any emo­tion­al reac­tion would be their “mon­ey shot.” The photographer’s actions felt inhu­mane, and his per­sis­tence only fueled my frus­tra­tion. At that moment, I snapped. I grabbed the near­est object I could find, which was a green umbrel­la, and in a fit of des­per­a­tion, I jumped out of the car. I wasn’t try­ing to hurt any­one, but I lashed out at the clos­est object I could reach—his car. It was a pathet­ic attempt, fueled by my des­per­a­tion, but it didn’t stop the paparazzi from fur­ther ridi­cul­ing me. Lat­er, I felt embar­rassed and sent an apol­o­gy to the pho­to agency, explain­ing that I wasn’t myself due to the intense pres­sure I was under. The truth was, I was struggling—desperately try­ing to find con­trol in a sit­u­a­tion that left me pow­er­less.

The paparazzi, how­ev­er, didn’t care about my pain. One of them lat­er stat­ed in a doc­u­men­tary inter­view about me, “That was not a good night for her… But it was a good night for us—’cause we got the mon­ey shot.” That state­ment, chill­ing­ly can­did, summed up the entire expe­ri­ence. In that moment, I real­ized how lit­tle human­i­ty was involved in their actions. They didn’t see me as a per­son but as a means to make mon­ey off my suf­fer­ing. Years lat­er, my hus­band Hesam would reflect on the sit­u­a­tion dif­fer­ent­ly, say­ing that shav­ing my head had become a sym­bol for many—an act of defi­ance against the expec­ta­tions placed on me. To him, it rep­re­sent­ed a refusal to con­form, a choice to reject the image of beau­ty and fem­i­nin­i­ty that had been imposed on me. It was empow­er­ing in a way, but the world around me wasn’t ready to under­stand it, and instead, it became just anoth­er spec­ta­cle for oth­ers to exploit.