Celebs, Media Touched by Three-Year-Old's ‘Selfless Donation’
As the media focus on crude topics leading up to Christmas, they occasionally offer a gift – a tidbit of heartwarming news.
When three-year-old Ariana Smith asked her parents why a sick little girl in a video didn’t have hair, she insisted, “Oh, well she can have some of my hair.” Going in for her very first haircut, the toddler from Winterport, Maine donated her hair to a child with medical hair loss Nov. 21 through Locks of Love. Media and celebrities alike latched on to the story of a little girl’s “selfless donation.”
Her father, Josh Smith, explained the story to ABC News. “Ariana happened to be sitting on my lap when a video played showing a little girl who was bald, lying in a hospital bed with tubes in her,” he said. That video came from Extra Life, which raises money for Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals through video gaming.
Ariana “had been fighting a haircut for a while,” BuzzFeed reported, because “[s]he was either too scared of the unknown or too attached to her hair.” But she quickly changed her mind.
“I’d like to think she did it because she had a sort of understanding that she had something another person did not, and it’s the right thing to do,” her father told the outlet.
He posted pictures of her new ‘do to Imgur in a Nov. 29 post that now boasts more than 660,000 views.
"She could be so selfless like that," Smith stressed to ABC. "Her first reaction is ‘How about I give up something that I have so a little girl can feel pretty.'"
In response, the media praised the toddler. ABC’s Nicole Pelletiere admired the ”selfless donation” and “heart that was too big for words” while “World News” anchor David Muir spent a Dec. 2 segment on the “brave girl” with a “lesson for us all tonight about what it means to be America Strong.”
The Huffington Post’s Kimberly Yam wrote on the “benevolent” toddler for her “generosity” and “act of kindness.” Similarly. Fox’s “The Five” co-host Kimberly Guilfoyle covered the “little angel.”
Actress Abigail Breslin retweeted the story. Celebrity Jessica Alba’s company also shared the piece.
— Katie Yoder is Staff Writer, Joe and Betty Anderlik Fellow in Culture and Media at the Media Research Center. Follow Katie Yoder on Twitter.
