Source: Instagram, @im_d_ollady / Instagram/@im-d_ollady
Now that Tessica Brown, aka, Gorilla Glue Girl, is free of the surreally sealed hairstyle that haunted her for a month thanks to her dousing it in the industrial adhesive spray, you might think she’s found her happily ever after. Raising more than $23K in GoFundMe donations to provide aid through her ordeal certainly helps to bring about a fresh start. But in a new interview with The Root, Brown shared that trying to move forward after being the butt of jokes across the Internet (and even on Saturday Night Live), has been tough.
“I just didn’t think that through all the way; that’s exactly what it was. I didn’t,” she said of utilizing the glue that would change her life. “I ran past the refrigerator and I saw it sitting up there and I was like ‘I could spray this and when I come home, I could just wash it out.’ I said it in the video, it was a bad, it was a big mistake. I was just asking y’all what I could use to take this off and y’all just took it and brought it to a whole other level. The internet will hurt your feelings, really really bad. I can’t win with the internet, the internet is really undefeated. And I’m over it.”
Her feelings haven’t solely been hurt, though. Brown revealed that her two young daughters were being picked on based on her mistake, which has been a brutal realization for her as a parent.
“I had to tell my little girls when they went to school, ‘If anybody tries to tell y’all something about that, don’t worry about it. You know it’s not me.’ My second little girl, she came home and she looked at me and then fell into my arms crying. She said the little boys [at school] were singing the ‘Gorilla Glue song’ and they were singing it in her face. I told her the next time they sing it, learn the words. Sing it with them. So after I told that to her, I go into the bathroom. Now I’m crying because I’m the reason they’re making fun of my baby,” she said.
But with enough time, things will likely return to normal for Brown, who says she owns a daycare and has a dance team she leads back home in Louisiana. Money raised from her GoFundMe she’s been using to help others, including her surgeon, Dr. Obeng’s reconstructive surgery nonprofit. She also has a new and simple hairdo, thank goodness. And despite what strangers on the Internet might think of her or say, she knows who she is.
“I’m a real person and really, if you go look at my Instagram—I’m a good time,” she told The Root. “I am a good time. Just like I said one time before: If y’all call me and talk to me, I promise you by the time you’re done you’re gonna be like, ‘Oh, she’s a cool little chick.’”
“Y’all want to paint me as this money-hungry clout-chaser—and speaking of the whole money thing, I raffle off tickets each year to where parents can win free daycare for a year. Does that sound like I need to get some money?” she added. “With my dance team, we hand out food baskets to the sick, the shut-in, and the elderly. They even do a performance. This is what I do, I give back. That’s why I said I was donating [some of] the GoFundMe to Dr. Obeng, and the rest of it I’m going to use to help out three families down here. That’s who I am.”
