‘Welcome to Plathville’ exclusive: Moriah opens up about childhood alopecia for the 1st time

Plath said she was “completely bald” for “several years” due to the autoimmune disorder.

“Welcome to Plathville” star Moriah Plath is opening up up about a painful part of her past for the first time in the next installment of the TLC series.

In the episode, titled “Life’s But a Walking Shadow …,” the reality star reveals that she had alopecia as a child.

“When I was a little girl, when I was 3 years old, I lost all my hair for several years. Completely, not even eyebrows or eyelashes. I was completely bald,” she says in a confessional interview.

The American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) defines alopecia areata as a “disease that causes hair loss.”

“This type of hair loss usually begins in children and young adults, but it can start at any age. People of all skin tones and genders get alopecia areata,” the AAD website reads.

The 20-year-old, who is the second oldest daughter of Barry and Kim Plath’s nine children, goes on to explain her diagnosis and the effects it had on her confidence.

“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,” she says. “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.”

While dining out with her father, Moriah Plath explains that she shied away from talking about her alopecia with her family members over the years.

“Once I got my hair back, it was just like, ‘OK, that’s not me anymore. Let’s forget about that.’ You know, I asked everybody to just not talk about it,” she says.

“Right, but now it’s OK to talk about it,” he replies.

Back in her confessional, Moriah Plath says she previously asked her family members not to share photos of her as a child or discuss her condition.

“I just wanted to completely block that as something that happened to me,” she says.

At lunch, the reality star speaks more with her father.

“That’s what made me different from the beginning. It wasn’t because you guys treated me differently,” she says.

“Did I treat you differently?” Barry Plath asks.

“I mean, I was different. You didn’t treat me different,” she says.

The father of nine asserts that he didn’t think his daughter was different, but seems to understand her position.

“I think you and mom were the only ones that actually told me I was beautiful,” she says.

“You remember that, right?” Barry Plath asks.

“Oh, I do,” his daughter says.

Moriah Plath says she went through a difficult time after losing her hair as a child.

“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 says.

Barry Plath replies, “We were all helpless.” The reality star empathizes with the bullying his daughter endured and says he’s sorry that children can be “cruel” to each other.

“The words really affected me,” she says.

“Yeah, well, they cut like knives sometimes,” he agrees.

Moriah Plath then says the insults affected her confidence.

“I would look myself in the mirror and I would say, ‘You are ugly. Nobody will ever love you,'” she says.

Back in her confessional, Moriah Plath explains that her love for fashion helped her cope with that difficult period in her life.

“That was the hardest thing I struggled with, with how I saw myself. But if I had the right hat, the right dress, if I had the right clothes on that made me look cuter, then I wouldn’t be teased as much, And people would treat me differently or they’d treat me normally, what I thought was normally,” she says, holding back tears.

The reality star explains that she still finds comfort in fashion.

“Since then I’ve always been like that. I’ve always been like, “Well, today’s a bad day. I’m gonna go change my outfit. It’s always been like that and outfits have changed my life. If you have the right outfit on, you’re gonna have a good day,” she says.