Cancer Survivor Kicked out of Bridal Party for Refusing to Wear a Wig

We are in the golden age of monstrous bridezillas being outed on Reddit, and this story is no exception. In fact, this one has risen to the top of the heap because of the bride's sheer shamelessness when it comes to being a terrible human being. 

Bridesmaidwoes123 made a throwaway account and recently took to the Bridezillas subreddit to share her frankly heart-wrenching and appalling story. She explains that she's really confused about the situation as this woman was her good friend. The friend, whom she calls "Karen" for the duration of the post, was the maid of honor at her wedding. She is now Karen's "number two" bridesmaid after Karen's sister. So these two are — or likely were, at this point — quite close.

"To make a long story short," our bridesmaid explains, "I got some real bad news in the past year and had to undergo radiation and chemotherapy. I don't want to go into details about this because it's still very traumatic for me. My hair fell out and I am recovering but my hair is still very short."

She explains that she became active in the survivor community (one can assume she had cancer), and she says Karen has been very supportive through everything. "She is a nurse and it has been nice to have someone with medical background to chat about some of the issues about this," she explains.

You'd think Karen, as a nurse and a close friend, would understand what her friend has been going through. And until now, that seemed to be the case. Two weeks ago, Karen called her and arranged to take her out to celebrate her remission and told her she had a special surprise for her. 

So they meet up and have a lovely spa day. But here's the kicker: "At the end of the day she takes me to a special hair salon which specializes in high quality wigs." She's super taken aback by this, as "Karen knows that a lot of the work I have been [doing] involves psychological treatment in cancer patients and avoiding the shame associated with hair loss, for instance." Nevertheless, she politely goes through the appointment and then declines to pick out a wig.

She thought that was the end of that. But just a couple days ago, Karen called and told her she could no longer be her bridesmaid "because the minister stated there are too many people in the bridal party." She was completely shocked, especially because she and Karen are supposedly super close. 

Confused, she called the other bridesmaids to see if they had any insight, and while they were reluctant to talk, they hinted that Karen was worried about how pictures would look if her friend was bald. Obviously, that's extremely upsetting, and now she's contemplating not attending the wedding at all. 

If I were in the same position, I would feel exactly the same way. Your friends are supposed to love you, period — whether you have hair or not. It's not a big deal, and if Karen is going to kick her out of the bridal party because she doesn't have hair, she's not a real friend. It would be a terrible thing to do if she was bald by choice, but let's not forget the fact that she lost her hair to cancer. Something Karen, her friend and a professional nurse, should completely sympathize with.

She called Karen repeatedly to talk about this, and Karen wouldn't pick up. When she finally got ahold of her, Karen maintained her story that the minister said six bridesmaids was too many. Um, six bridesmaids, I think, is a very normal, reasonable number of bridesmaids.

Then, Karen went on to say that her friend had "been really distant the past year and that I didn't seem interested in helping her with the wedding which is why she decided to select me to be off the wedding party." Maybe her friend couldn't help with the wedding planning because she was busy, oh, I don't know, fighting cancer! How selfish can a person be?! She said herself that Karen was supportive through her journey. It's not like she didn't know what was going on. 

Sorry, Karen, but your friend's cancer journey trumps your wedding planning. Karen continued her childish rant: "She said she helped me a lot and that I'm not returning the favor by being a team player. She said that she knows I am going through a lot but that personality 'has changed' and that I'm not the friend she knows from childhood." Then, she proceeded to hint that if she decided to wear the wig, she could be "back on the team."

Luckily, I was not alone in my shock. "I would not go to the wedding and cut your losses of her as a friend," one person wrote. "Too bad her pictures won't capture her awful and superficial character," another wrote. 

It's so true. Of course she's not the same person she was in childhood. She's grown up, and she's battled cancer. That changes a person. And if Karen can't understand the toll that having cancer takes on a person and understand why someone going through that might not be able to drop everything to pamper her friend for her wedding, she should not be a nurse, and she definitely doesn't deserve to be her friend.