Cancer Barbie Goes Bald For Young Chemotherapy Patients, But A Bald Barbie Is Hard To Find

A so-called cancer Barbie has the famous doll going bald for the good purpose of encouraging young chemotherapy patients. But the interesting part about the story is that Mattel only just barely decided to create a bald Barbie doll after an internet campaign told executive management how much demand there was for the idea.

In a related report by The Inquisitr, one designer created a plus size Barbie in order to prove what an overweight Barbie should look like. Now that the live action Barbie movie is on its way to theaters, some critics are claiming that a real life human Barbie would look “absurd” if the doll’s proportions were applied to a real woman, which is a type of comment that has been applied to the Barbie model Valeria.

The idea for a bald Barbie was so popular that even the Vatican got involved by asking Mattel to consider selling the cancer Barbie, whose campaign was launched on a Facebook group back in 2012:

“We would like to see a Beautiful and Bald Barbie made to help young girls who suffer from hair loss due to cancer treatments, Alopecia or Trichotillomania. Also, for young girls who are having trouble coping with their mother’s hair loss from chemo. Many children have some difficulty accepting their mother, sister, aunt, grandparent or friend going from a long haired to a bald.”

Interestingly enough, Mattel supposedly shot down the idea for the bald Barbie at first, but public demand was overwhelming that they caved in… with some caveats:

“Mattel did produce a fashion doll in 2012 that includes wigs, hats, scarves and other fashion accessories to provide girls with a traditional fashion play experience…. These dolls, named Ella Friend of Barbie, were distributed exclusively to children’s hospitals and other hospitals treating children with cancer throughout the U.S. and Canada, directly reaching girls who are most affected by hair loss and will not be available through any retail outlet. Mattel made the decision not to sell these dolls at retail stores and profit from them, but rather more directly and immediately get these into the hands of children who can most benefit from a play experience with these dolls.”

Melissa Bumstead says her four-year-old daughter Grace will be enduring chemotherapy for the next year and a half, and that having her own cancer Barbie has helped:

“She’s been amazingly brave. And we’re very, very proud of her. It’s not where we expected to be in life right now. We bring her along everywhere to say, this is what’s happening. This is what’s happened to Ella. This is what’s going to happen to you. It brought it to her level.”

Grace’s family believes Ella will help the little girl remember the struggle she is going to survive:

“We really believe that God is going to use this to do good things in her life and to make her the kind of person that she’s going to fight for good things all of her life.”

Unfortunately, Grace is the lucky one since Mattel did not make enough bald Barbie dolls for every child suffering from cancer. When her mother asked Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, they only had six dolls to give out. So Mrs. Bumstead organized a campaign to ask Mattel to create more, and after receiving hundreds of thousands of signatures, the company agreed to distribute more dolls to Children’s Hospitals throughout America. The current plan is to distribute the Ella dolls in August and make new ones every year.