Moriah Plath's Childhood Alopecia Made Her Feel "Ugly" and Unloved

Many of us have difficult things from our pasts that define us today, and Moriah Plath of Welcome to Plathville is no different. In her case, however, her childhood diagnosis of alopecia was hidden away for years — until now.

Although the reality star once tried to pretend that this upsetting time in her life never happened, she is coming to terms with having lost all of her hair as a kid. Here's what the reality star has said about her battle with alopecia.

Moriah has shared her battle with alopecia on TV and her social media platforms. In July 2025, she revealed she had been privately navigating losing her hair again after years of having "manageable" symptoms of the condition.

"A few months ago, I lost all my hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes again," Moriah wrote in a lengthy Instagram post. "It was extremely hard and emotional, and I had to come to terms with it. I cried an awful lot and then told myself, 'Oh well, it is what it is. I’ll do what I can and make the most of it."

Moriah explained she had been experimenting with wigs and drawing on her eyebrows daily, which she admitted "can be frustrating." She also said she made the post so her critics could know why her appearance changed. Moriah confirmed that, despite losing her hair, she's embracing her natural look more and more.

"I’m learning to love myself the way God made me, with or without hair," she said. "It’s a continuous struggle, but I’m getting there!"

Moriah continued: "Anyway, before you criticize someone or comment on their appearance just remember, you never know what they’re going through and try to speak life and positivity cause they probably are harder on themselves then you are!"

As other sufferers know, alopecia is a type of hair loss that occurs on the scalp, face, and body, per the American Academy of Dermatology Association. It can begin at any age, and for Moriah, at age 3, she received her diagnosis.

"I would look myself in the mirror and I would say, 'You are ugly. Nobody will ever love you,'" she heartbreakingly recalls during an episode of the show.

She goes on to explain, "I lost all my hair for several years completely, not even eyebrows or eyelashes," per People.

Moriah, who described herself as "completely bald," shared more about her experience with the incurable disease, saying during the show, “The doctors said it was alopecia but it was like a rare kind of alopecia cause it just all fell out immediately and came back years later. Everywhere I went, I was made fun of by kids my age: [at] church, [by] my siblings. And that’s when I really started to see myself as different.”

Moriah was seemingly in denial about having had alopecia, relaying that “every single one of my family members knew never to show a picture of me when I was younger to anybody. And never to tell anybody.”

Moriah admitted she wanted to "block" out the very hard time in her life, and in one scene of Welcome to Plathville, she says to her father that when her hair returned, she decided to "forget" about the alopecia.

In a moving Instagram post shared in May 2023, Moriah said about her father Barry Plath, "He’s shown me the meaning of unconditional love."

Indeed, it seems that during the years she had alopecia, Barry and his ex-wife Kim were a source of support for their daughter.

“I think you and mom were the only ones that actually told me I was beautiful," Moriah tells Barry on the episode.

Still, her parents couldn't make her pain go away completely. "For a while I was angry because you guys couldn't fix it and you were my parents and you were supposed to fix it, but you couldn't," she shares.

Today, it seems that Moriah is more comfortable with her past, since she is addressing the experience with the condition on a TV show. Since as many as 160 million people around the world suffer from alopecia, there's no doubt that the reality star opening up about her own diagnosis will help others feel more seen.