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Joelle was born in Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, England, in the Special Care Baby Unit extremely premature at 26 weeks. She is Austrian as well as English, having lived the majority of her life in London.
Joelle grew up in an artistic household writing poems, songs and creating videos as a child. Having no hair since the age of 8 due to alopecia universalis, Joelle endured bullying at school and in public, which motivated her to want to change the way people view alopecia. By the time she was 13, Joelle became an internationally recognised alopecia awareness campaigner, after receiving an outpouring of praise from the public for her music performances and video creations.
During her early teens, Joelle won several film festival awards, a pivotal time which led to her honing her skills, vocal training in Atlanta, Georgia with Peggy Still Johnson and further stage training with former director of the London Community Gospel Choir, Daniel Thomas. Following her success as an alopecia awareness campaigner, at 15 she became an ambassador for the UK charity Alopecia UK.
Joelle went on to study film and TV in higher education and later directed and performed in her first short film Cover Up (2019), featuring original sound recordings composed by multi-Grammy-winning Oscar-nominated songwriter Diane Warren. Joelle made her feature film debut in Denis Villeneuve’s Dune (2021), plays the character ‘Joelle’ in Paul Feig’s Netflix film The School for Good and Evil (2022), ‘Joiya Byir’ in Amazon Studio’s second season of The Wheel of Time (2023), and the role of ‘Vipsania’ as a series regular in season two of MGM+ and Sky’s historical TV drama Domina (2023).
Joelle’s performance style has been described as unforgettably genuine and unique.
At the age of 15, Joelle was appointed as an Ambassador for the charity Alopecia UK. As part of her ambassadorial role, she meets children, parents, family members, and friends at support groups and events, giving advice and sharing insights from her journey. She has also conducted bullying prevention talks with thousands of children in the US.
Joelle encourages others to have a different attitude towards having no hair, to understand a different view that hair is an accessory, not a necessity. She fulfills one of her greatest desires: spreading the message that it is more than ok to have no hair -- it is something to be proud of. Her positive outlook empowers many people to embrace and celebrate who they are, with or without hair.
Joelle stated on the UK's BBC "I don't wear make-up to feel secure. I wear make-up to make society feel secure, and that's why sometimes I don't wear make-up..."
She now reflects, "It was not until later that I realised that I was not protecting myself all these years, but other people, from what they didn't understand. I realised that I was only able to embrace my alopecia because people were embracing my hiding it, even though they didn't know it at the time and neither did I."
One of Joelle's most inspiring characteristics is her consistently positive view of the future: "The world has changed so much in a decade. Alopecia represents just one part of the world's growing melting pot of amazing qualities to be found in people. Millions have learned acceptance of others. Because we are all different in so many interesting ways, we have the opportunity to celebrate our differences and grow a greater sense of understanding, which connects us all. We can all feel pain. We can all feel joy. We are people with a future to understand each other together and not alone."