This Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader Reveals the Truth Behind Her Alopecia Diagnosis

The newest season of America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders recently landed on Netflix with an unexpectedly bold heroine: five-year Dallas Cowboys cheerleader veteran Armani Latimer. 

In a raw conversation on Victoria Garrick Browne’s Real Pod, the Dallas Cowboys cheerleader opens up about the autoimmune condition that once convinced her to get dressed “with no lights on,” discussing how her illness fuels her mission to help every woman who has ever felt less-than feel even more empowered than ever before.

Alopecia enters the locker room

Latimer’s journey began at age 12, when her mom discovered a bald spot while braiding her hair. “My mom just kinda was like, ‘Oh, there’s a bald spot here,’” she recalls. The moment wasn’t initially traumatic—her father also lives confidently with alopecia, so the condition wasn’t foreign in their household. But awareness of difference often comes with time and social context. “It kinda didn’t even dawn on me that this was a bad thing…Then I started to get insecure,” Latimer adds, describing the shift from innocent acceptance to self-consciousness that many people with visible differences experience during adolescence.

The American Academy of Dermatology explains that alopecia areata usually starts with “round or oval bald patches,” and can flare during stressful seasons. The hair often regrows—sometimes white, sometimes finer, but always on its own timetable.

Latimer’s first response wasn’t panic; it was planning. She asked her mom for “hairstyles that would help me cover my bald spots,” and for years she kept the diagnosis private—even from most of her teammates.

Hiding the patches under wigs 

When training camp 2020 arrived—complete with masks and all—Latimer still relied on clever hair parting and constant mirror checks. “I would do a full turnaround. ‘Can you see anything?’” she laughs. Every night meant FaceTiming her mom before practice. Once she made the squad, Latimer says, the perfection pressure doubled. “I opted for the wig option,” she notes. “I thought that was going to save my hair.”

But alopecia had other plans. During year two, the unthinkable happened. “I pushed [the wig] back, it all slid off and fell onto the ground,” Latimer recalls. “All of my hair was still sewn to the wig.” In seconds, she went from patchy to completely bald. “I felt defeated,” she admits. “Why have I been fighting so long if it’s not gonna stay on my head?”

But she didn’t quit. Instead, Latimer quietly shared the news with a handful of friends at a DCC Bible study, then revealed the truth to the entire team while presenting her “My Cause, My Boots” charity pick: alopecia awareness. The Dallas Cowboys cheerleader locker room turned into a sob-fest of sisterhood, with Latimer saying, “I was in tears. They were in tears.”

The Monday Night Football reveal heard around the world

By her fifth and final season with the team, Latimer felt a call to ditch the wig on national TV. “This might be my last opportunity,” she says. “Who knows what could happen? Let’s just do it.”

Minutes before the Monday Night Football kickoff, she battled a tidal wave of emotion. “There’s gonna be so many eyes on me,” she remembers. “I don’t want to mess anything up.” But head coach Judy Trammell provided the moment of human connection that Latimer needed. “I started bawling,” Latimer recalls, describing how her coach’s supportive hug helped release the pressure she’d been carrying.

When Latimer sprinted onto the field—bald, beaming, and completely herself—she wasn’t just performing a routine. She was making a statement for other people with similar challenges. The Instagram clips exploded, and DMs flooded her inbox from strangers who saw themselves reflected in her courage. “People said, ‘I have alopecia too and I haven’t told anyone,’” she says. The impact extended beyond just alopecia awareness—her story resonated with anyone who had ever felt the pressure to hide a part of themselves to fit societal expectations.

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