Rapunzel’s Long Hair

***EXCLUSIVE***

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – UNDATED: Natasha Moraes de Andrade displays her hair at her home in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

A 12-YEAR-OLD girl nicknamed Rapunzel plans to cut her 1.6m of hair for the FIRST time – because it’s making her life a misery. Amazingly Natasha Moraes de Andrade – who lives in an impoverished shanty town in Rio De Janeiro and is just 4cm taller than her hair at 1.64m tall – stands to make a whopping £2,000 from selling her locks for hair extensions. She is hoping to buy her family out of poverty – or even just a new bedroom in the family’s modest home. She uses a whole pot of shampoo every week and washing her curly locks can take up to four hours, twice a week. Brushing it afterwards can take another one-and-a-half hours and she has to carry it around when she walks, and fold it onto her lap when she sits down. Mother Catarina Moraes de Andrade, 42, said the teen’s long hair mission started when Natasha was just a toddler. Admirers told her never to cut her daughter’s beautiful hair as it was so thick and long. But now she and the girl’s school are urging her girl to chop it off because it stops her from even taking part in P.E. lessons. Her family have to turn their fans off when she’s at home or she becomes trapped in the blades.

PHOTOGRAPH BY Daniela Dacorso / Barcroft USA

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