Meteorologist shamed for wearing a wig on-air during cancer battle

What is it about women whose jobs require them to appear on TV that makes some people think that gives them license to comment on their appearance? Meteorologist Laura Mock told the Today show that she’s received plenty of comments from viewers about her appearance (which is a problem in and of itself). But Mock, who is undergoing cancer treatments and currently wears a wig, recently had a hateful comment about her hair sent to her entire team at Fox 23 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where she works.

The subject line read “Laura Mock,” and in the body of the email, the sender wrote, “Can she stop playing with her hair and do the weather. Looks like she has added fake hair.”

That struck a nerve for Mock, so she posted a screenshot of the email to Facebook along with this message: “News flash! It is fake. I started losing my hair (thanks chemotherapy!) at the end of June and have been wearing a wig for a little more than a week. Think twice before sending hateful emails to your local news talent. This one was to our entire newsroom. Does it bother me? Not really. I have thick skin and have other things to worry about, like the cancer I’m trying to kick out of my body. Doesn’t mean I should have to tolerate comments like this.”

Alongside the post, she attached two photos: one of her wearing her wig, and another of her holding it next to her head.

Mock told Today that she wanted this viewer’s awful comment to be a learning opportunity for other people.

“I’m battling cancer, and everybody (at work) feels bad for me getting that comment,” she said. “But there are women that are getting these comments every day that maybe aren’t battling cancer, but they’re battling other things in their lives, and we don’t deserve to have this done.”

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Two weeks before she started wearing a wig, Mock shared her diagnosis with viewers on air. After finding a lump in her breast in February, she was diagnosed with stage 3 triple-negative breast cancer in May.

“I was told it was growing quickly and that with this type (of cancer) chemotherapy is the first step and most effective step,” she said. She immediately started mentally preparing herself for the side effects, including losing her hair. “As soon as it started falling out, I held on as long as I could, and then realized, ‘You know what? It’s not worth it,’ and buzzed my head. It felt so freeing.”

While Mock mostly receives positive comments on her new look, she had this reminder for viewers (and everyone else): “The people that you see on your local TV are just that: We are people, too. We are going through our own struggles day to day. If our makeup and hair isn’t perfectly in place, give us grace. You don’t know what our morning was like, what our week was like.”