Tessica Brown can finally breathe a sigh of relief. The 40-year-old Louisiana native went viral after using Gorilla Glue as hairspray, and posting a TikTok asking for help on how to remove the spray adhesive from her hair.
Weeks after the incident, and many attempts to rinse the product out, Brown is feeling so grateful after she underwent a procedure to restore her natural hair.
“Really and truly, I was like, ‘Whoa!'” Brown told ET’s Melicia Johnson after her procedure. The mother-of-five was flown out to Los Angeles, where plastic surgeon Dr. Michael Obeng removed the glue free of charge. “He is everything! I thanked him and hugged him and thanked him. I just came from my appointment a while ago, and we took so many more pictures…I didn’t even know what else, like, what could I do for you?”
She believed that Dr. Obeng must have known how to remove the adhesive if he was willing to fly her out to his offices. Brown is still scheduled to undergo another produce on Friday, and will be given some products to treat her scalp.
“It has some damage on my scalp and around the edges, but I still have hair,” Brown shared. “He’s hoping the treatment will keep it from the little parts falling out.”
Brown was sedated for the procedure and didn’t feel much pain at the time. “He told me that he didn’t have to put me into the deep sleep, but from the video that I’d seen, I heard myself talking,” she said. “I had no clue what happened when this was going on. I had no clue. So if it hurt, I don’t know. All I remember is getting up.”
She has since been told not to put any product or do anything with her hair for the next six weeks.
“He said I can put on a wig. But he said as far as putting anything on my scalp [nothing] for six weeks,” she said, before adding that Beyoncé’s longtime hairstylist, Neal Farinah, “Said he’s coming to New Orleans and we gonna eat some crawfish together, and we gonna get a wig together.”
Watch Tessica Brown’s Emotional Moment After Doctor Removes Gorilla Glue From Her Hair
Brown had initially launched a GoFundMe page in hopes to raise $1,500 to buy wigs to help her situation. She has since earned over $21,000 and plans to donate some of the money to families at St. Bernard Parish Hospital in Chalmette, Louisiana.
“As far as the GoFundMe, I am going to buy me a wig and I’m going to pick three families out of St. Bernard Parish to help out. Because again, we never thought that this was going to be the way it turned out,” Brown explained. “And people are still going off on me that it’s still up. I just told my sister, we have to take this down and we have to take it down now. Whatever’s there now, this is what I’m gonna go do with it, what I’ll do when I get back home.”
“I pretty much love everybody at St. Bernard Parish, and majority of them love me too,” she continued. “So I don’t even know who to pick, but I’m gonna pick three people. Because again, I never thought for one second that it was going to be that much because at this point I think it’s like $20,000.”
Meanwhile, Brown previously told ET that she took to TikTok to ask for help, but never intended to go viral for the mishap. She quickly became a target for jokes and unwanted attention, with many referring to her as “the Gorilla Glue girl.” At the time, she emotionally confessed to ET that the whole situation had taken a toll on her, and she wished she never would have posted the video.
“Don’t kick me when I’m down. Because again, when I got up the next morning after I made that video, I didn’t think for one second video [it would go viral],” she expressed during the latest interview, before touching on how her mother, a longtime viewer of the Wendy Williams Show, called into the daytime talk show to tell the host to “give my baby a break.”
“Today I got a message and it was like, ‘You have to go watch the show,'” she recalled. “I’m sitting there there like, ‘What, my mom on the phone with Wendy?!’ [My mom said], ‘I know you goes ham on everybody that come on the show. I watch the show everyday, but my baby made a mistake, give her a break.’…Wendy, she was speechless, like she didn’t know what to.”
For now, Brown shared she would be taking a break from social media but is so grateful for everyone’s support.
“I’m thanking everybody. Everybody. Over this weekend I’m dedicating myself to thanking everybody,” Brown expressed. “All the hatred stuff, guess what? I’m going to thank them too. I’m thanking everybody because I’m good. I got hair, you know what I’m saying? I’m good. It didn’t kill me, all it did was [make me stronger].”
