Meet the little girl who captured social media’s hearts with her confidence
Showing adorable pride in her natural hair, 4-year-old Leila Danai has become a viral social media sensation.
Amidst aesthetically pleasing posts and funny memes, every now and then, social media showcases some of life’s most heartwarming moments. One such moment occurred in July 2023, when Leila Danai, a now 4-year-old little girl from Florida, went viral for the first time on TikTok for proclaiming her unwavering love for her natural hair.
“Owen said he didn’t like my hair, but I said, ‘I like it,'” Leila told her mother in the video, recounting an insulting encounter with a classmate. “He said, ‘I don’t like that hair, it’s crazy.’ And I said, ‘My mommy made it. If you don’t like it, I’ll keep it for myself.’”
Since then, Leila’s adorable confidence has captured the hearts of TikTok users around the world, including actress Viola Davis.
“”[That’s how] this whole thing started. I posted [the video in July], and somehow Viola Davis picked it up and reposted it,” Leila’s mother, Mildred Munjanganja, told People magazine. “And then it had, I don’t know, 30 million views in different places.”
Now, with over 1.9 million views and 404,600 likes and shares, the video’s popularity spread internationally. According to Munjanganja, users from Syria, Pakistan and other global locales have reached out to share their appreciation for the video’s adorable and inspirational message.
“I’ve had people reach out to me from different countries, and they’re telling me how this video has given them so much hope,” Munjanganja added. “How her standing up for herself has resonated with them, and it’s given them confidence, and now they’re thinking about how they’re raising their children and what they’re teaching their kids.”
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One of the most notable things about the video is Leila’s graceful and unbothered response to her classmate’s criticisms — something her mother was determined to teach her. Wanting her daughter to embrace everything that makes her unique, Munjanganja raised Leila to understand that “people will have different opinions, and we can thank them for their contribution, but we don’t have to soak it in. We don’t have to take it, we don’t have to accept it, we don’t have to allow it to ruin our day. We can simply acknowledge that it’s their contribution, but it’s theirs.”
However, Munjanganja made it a point to not only tell her daughter these things but show her. To demonstrate that “everyone is beautiful in their own way,” she took her daughter to a pet show where Leila saw dogs of all shapes, sizes, colors and breeds she found equally appealing.
“She thought they were all cute and they’re all beautiful,” Munjanganja recalled.”That’s how I was able to say, ‘Hey. So you see how you think all these dogs are cute, one is white, one is black, one is brown, one has curly hair, straight hair, straight fur … it’s the same thing with people. We have different textures and colors, but at the end of the day, our differences are what make us beautiful,’ and that really resonated with her.”
The mother-daughter content creators’ journey originally began to satisfy a request made by Munjanganja’s parents. Living in Zimbabwe, Leila’s grandparents constantly asked for videos of their growing grandbaby.
“[So] I started recording these videos for my parents so that they can live the experience of their granddaughter, even though she’s not with them,” she explained.
With Leila now going global, Munjanganja told theGrio the family hopes to see their little girl take center stage on a larger platform. “Tell Disney to cast her,” she joked.
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