Becoming a meme: Tessica Brown on becoming Gorilla Glue Woman

“I’m not this whole Gorilla Glue girl, my name is Tessica Brown. Call me. I’ll talk to you. I’ll let you know exactly who I am.”

Tessica Brown didn’t wake up trying to become Twitter’s next meme. She posted a TikTok about having Gorilla Glue stick in her hair after a bad mistake she made one morning. But suddenly the next thing the forty-year-old woman knew, she was being called the “Gorilla Glue girl”. 

Now, Tessica is setting the record straight about what happened that fateful morning. Plus, she’s helping the internet get to know Tessica Brown, and not Gorilla Glue girl. 

One day changes everything

In January, Tessica Brown ran out of hairspray one morning when getting ready for work. Desperate to style her hair and make it to work on time, Tessica made the impulsive decision to use Gorilla Glue spray to keep her hair in place. Successfully styling her hair, Tessica went off to work with no issue. 

However, when Tessica went to wash her hair next, she couldn’t move her hair. Her hair was so stuck to her scalp, she couldn’t even pick a stray hair if she tried. After fifteen different washes, the poor woman was running out of options to get the Gorilla Glue out of her hair. So she turned to social media.

Overnight, the TikTok Tessica posted about her woes garnered millions of views. Everyone and their mother was trying to come up with ideas on how to dissolve the Gorilla glue of her hair without ruining her hair. 

From advice to meme territory

The internet tends to be unforgiving as well. While Tessica found people trying to give her helpful advice, she had plenty of people mocking her. Some called her an idiot for thinking Gorilla Glue should be used on hair. Others tried to claim she pulled this as a stunt for clout online. 

In an interview with Entertainment Tonight, Tessica made it clear she was sick of the critics. “Then somebody said, ‘Oh, she’s just put that on her head on purpose just to get to here.’ Who in their right mind would say, ‘Oh well, let me just spray this in my head and become famous overnight?’ Never! . . . Who would want them to do that? I needed somebody to tell me how to take this off, that’s all it was.”

Finding a cure

At the end of the day, Tessica is just a woman who wanted someone to get the Gorilla Glue out of her hair. After realizing it was highly likely she would lose all her hair, Tessica started a GoFundMe to help her pay for wigs she would eventually need to replace her hair. Setting the goal at just $1,500, the GoFundMe has raised over $20k as of writing this article. 

Thankfully, there’s a happy ending to all of Tessica’s pain. A Beverly Hills plastic surgeon named Dr. Michael Obeng offered to do a $12,500 procedure for free to get the glue out of Tessica’s hair. Flying out to LA, Tessica underwent the four-hour procedure with great success. 

🚨 The Gorilla Glue is finally out of Tessica Brown’s hair 🚨 https://t.co/GCn3VqTu9A pic.twitter.com/ZVRDDloUTF

— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) February 11, 2021

Using a combination of medical-grade adhesive remover, aloe veda, olive oil, and acetone, Dr. Obeng was able to remove the glue from Tessica’s hair while preserving her scalp in the process. In a video tweeted by TMZ, you can see Tessica running her fingers through her hair for the first time in weeks since the debacle began. 

“My name is Tessica”

The most painful part of the whole process for Tessica has been dealing with the reaction online. Affecting not only her personal life, but her kids, Tessica is asking for people to get to know her beyond the Gorilla Glue woman meme. 

“I told my son today, ‘I wish I could just go back,’ because I’m over it. I’m over it. I’m usually the person that I don’t care what people say. I just move at my own pace. I don’t care what people say, but it’s just getting to the point where people are on TV saying stuff about me.”

Now that Tessica can move her hair like normal, the craze may die down around the meme. But if anything, this is a reminder to everyone to not put Gorilla Glue in your hair, and especially don’t do it just to become famous online.