Lena Waithe Explains Why She Cut Her Hair. “I Felt Like I Was Holding Onto a Piece of Femininity.”

Lena Waithe, the prolific Emmy-winning writer who is now balancing multiple projects, set the internet ablaze again when she unveiled a new buzzed haircut and fade.

Waithe spoke to Variety on the red carpet for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s annual grants banquet.

The decision was long-simmering, Waithe said.

“I’ve gotten gayer, guys,” Waithe joked. “I felt like I was holding onto a piece of femininity that would make the world feel comfortable with who I am,” Waithe said. “I think I thought for a long time, ‘Oh, if I cut my hair, I’ll be a stud, I’ll be — in the gay world, there’s a lot of categories — I’ll be a stud or I’ll be a butch,’ and I’ve always thought, ‘Well, no, I’m not that, I’m still soft,’ and I said, ‘Oh, I gotta put that down ’cause that’s something that’s outside of me.’”

She said the haircut made her feel “so free and so happy and so joyful. “

She added: “I really stepped into myself.”

“If people call me a butch or say ‘she’s stud’ or call me sir out in the world — so what? So be it. I’m here with a suit on, not a stitch of makeup, and a haircut — I feel like, ‘Why can’t I exist in the world in that way?’” she said.

Waithe became the first black woman to win an Emmy for comedy writing when she won for writing the “Thanksgiving” episode of Master of None in 2017. Since then, she’s launched a series of her own projects and has even more in the works. Amazon recently announced it picked up two seasons of a horror anthology series, Them, from Waithe.