Kelly Rowland, seen here at the Black Women in Music Dinner on June 12, 2026 in Los Angeles, California, has long had to manage her eczema. (Photo by Michael Tullberg/Getty Images)
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Grammy-winning singer songwriter, actress and Destiny’s Child alum Kelly Rowland scored a hit with David Guetta in “When Love Takes Over” in 2010. But what about when eczema takes over? Well that can be quite a “Dilemna,” to borrow the name o another Rowland hit in 2002 with Nelly.
How Rowland Was Diagnosed With Eczema
Rowland recently talked to me about her eczema diagnosis and the flare ups that have occurred during rather inopportune times—if you consider during a live stage performance, for example, to be an inopportune time. “My diagnosis came about when after I had my first son Titan,” Rowland recalled. “I had all these different flare ups, which I thought were rashes at the time. So although I was scratching, I was thinking in my head that I was spreading whatever rash it was all over my body.” The identity of the rash wasn’t clear at the time. In other words, the rash was kind of going “say my name, say my name” without Rowland knowing what it was.
But then Rowland got some “Motivation” to make a rash judgment. “I remember going to get a facial after I had my son, and I just asked my aesthetician, Shani Darden, about it,” Rowland explained. Darden pointed out that Rowland had eczema and “literally sent me to a derm.” That was about 11 years ago.
Once Rowland got to a dermatologist where she was officially diagnosed with eczema, “I realized that I’d always suffered from it,” said Rowland. She realized that she had suffered flare-ups her her legs, elbows, neck, back, eyes, nose and other places. She also realized that “everybody back home in Atlanta, from what I remember, had eczema.” This helped her understand the range that eczema can have and that “It’s different for everybody.”
And as I’ve written before in Forbes, everybody can be a lot of bodies. The National Eczema Association.estimated that eczema affects anywhere from 10 percent to 20 percent of all children and 2 percent to 10 percent of all adults around the world,
Rowland Said ‘Eczema Has A Mind Of Its Own’
Rowland also commented that “eczema has a mind of its own. It just does what it wants to do. ” She described how the flare-ups have been unpredictable, “You don’t know what the your day is going to feel like. You don’t know what food is going to trigger it. You don’t know what stress is going to trigger it. You’re just, you’re learning how to manage it every day.”
She added, “It’s really inopportune when it happens sometimes.” Rowland went on to describe a rather eye-opening situation when “I had a flare up, and it was in the middle of my eye bit, and my pickup artist covered it.” Rowland continued with, “I remember speaking to someone afterwards and I said, ‘I wonder, are they looking into my eyes?’” Rowland talked about how it “affects your confidence” and “messes with you.”
Rowland Heard Lots Of Misinformation And Disinformation About Eczema
“At the time, when I first learned about the eczema 11 years ago, I was given something topical, which would help in the meantime,” Rowland recalled. But once it was clear that she had eczema, she might as well have sang, “Lay It on Me,” because she found. “So many people that had opinions. And I kind of listened to everything. It was just so much information.”
A lot of that information was wrong, too. For example, here’s a shocker, there’s a ton of misinformation and disinformation out there on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, X, Poop Map or whatever social media platform you may frequent. Each of these platforms have lots of influencers pushing different viewpoints and supposed remedies. And it may not be clear what the financial or political agendas behind each of these may be.
Rowland Emphasized The Importance Of Seeing Real Doctors And Advocating For Yourself
Kelly Rowland has emphasized the importance of being aware of your surroundings and body and advocating for yourself. (Photo by Paras Griffin/WireImage)
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That’s why Rowland emphasized, “It’s important to ask your doctor.” She went on to say, “I think that that’s where sometimes we try to self-diagnose, and I didn’t go to school for this.” Of course, you shouldn’t just ask any doctor. Like in any field or profession, the medical profession has a very wide range of doctors that vary substantially in quality, training, experience, judgment, insight and personalities. When you want to record an album, you’d probably opt for a former member of Destiny’s Child over someone who was just anybody’s child. Similarly, you’ve got to take the time to choose the right doctor.
Moreover, Rowland urged people to “advocate for themselves and ask the questions the same way I did, and be able to get information back. That definitely creates a situation where you gain more knowledge about whether it’s something that you should use or something that you should eliminate from your diet or space or whatever it might be.” She added, “I think it’s really being aware of your surroundings and aware of your body.”
Moreover, eczema can go beyond being a skin-deep problem. And a given medical issue can call for a collaboration of specialists. “I think an allergist is actually a game changer,” Rowland urged and explained how allergy tests have helped identify potential triggers for not only her flare-ups but also those of her other son, Noah, who has been diagnosed with eczema as well.
Rowland Has Made Lifestyle Changes To Manage Eczema
After getting testy in a good way, Rowland made some lifestyle changes. You may say tomato but Rowland says no-go to them. She’s also distanced herself from alcohol.
She also stressed the importance of managing stress, another potential trigger. She called stress “inevitable” but said that she does”a lot more, like calm breathing,” to manage the stress.
As far as Noah’s arc with eczema, “when Noah just goes outside, his skin changes and he starts to scratch, especially when it’s really big, I call it a thick season. where the air is just covered in all kinds of stuff,” Rowland said. “He can walk outside and immediately start sneezing, itching and everything. We have to remove his shirt or his clothes, give him a bath, wash his face and everything to where we get whatever that is in the air off of him and then you’ll have some relief.”
Rowland Also Takes Medications For Eczema
Rowland has also been using medications to manage eczema. I’ve already covered in Forbes the arsenal of things that you can do against eczema, ranging from keeping your skin moisturized to anti-histamine and anti-inflammatory medications to topical and oral steroids to immunosuppressants to newer biologics that consist of antibodies that can block various proteins involved in causing the inflammation seen in eczema. Rowland has been taking one of these biologics—Ebglyss—and working with the makers of the medication—Lilly—to increase the awareness of eczema and available treatments.
Rowland was in a movie entitled “Relationship Goals” that came out this past Valentine’s Day on Amazon Prime where she co-stared with Clifford “Method Man” Smith. In it, the character played by Rowland had some struggles until reciving relationship advice that changed her dating life. Well, the same thing kind of happened with her relationship with eczema. The right medical advice had her finally jumpin’, jumpin’ in the right direction.