'I've got my freedom back': The real-life Rapunzel who sold her hair for $5,000 to buy family house

A real-life Rapunzel girl who cut her hair for the first time has given her family the fairytale home they always dreamed of. Natasha Moraes de Andrade, 12, wept as her 1.6m mane was sheared for the first time ever. But now she says it has given her a new life.

 Natasha, who lives in a shanty town in Rio de Janeiro, was previously unable to do things enjoyed by other children such as going to the beach. It took four hours every week to wash her hair and an hour and a half to brush every day, and made her life a misery.

 Now she has had it all hacked off into a simple bob of just 40cm long, and washing her hair only takes five minutes. And while Natasha previously slept in a tiny, windowless room, she got B$9,000 (about £3,000) from selling the hair for extensions which she has put towards a new home for her family. 'I cried at first when I was at the hairdressers to get it cut,' she says.

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Real-life Rapunzel, 12, set to cut hair for the first time... and plans to sell the 5ft 2in mane for £3,500 (PHOTOS)

A twelve-year-old girl who has been dubbed the real-life Rapunzel after refusing to cut her hair for her whole life is to cut it all off - and plans the 5ft 2in mane of hair for £3,500 to be made into extensions.

Natasha Moraes de Andrade, who lives in an impoverished shanty town in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, has never had a haircut. At 5ft 3in, she is just one inch taller than the length of her wavy chestnut hair - and the maintenance it requires sees her use a full bottle of shampoo every week.

Natasha spends four hours per week washing her hair and up to an hour-and-a-half brushing it each day. She has to carry it around when she walks, and fold it onto her lap when she sits down.

Despite Rio's 40-degree heat Natasha's family cannot switch on a fan in the house because her hair gets caught in it

And children often stand outside her house and shout 'Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair.'

Her mother Catarina Moraes de Andrade, 42, said admirers told her never to cut her daughter's beautiful hair as it was so thick and long.

But now she's urging her girl to chop it off because it's interfering with her life.

Mrs Moreas de Andrade said: 'At the moment she is like a prisoner. She just goes from school to home again.

'She can't do anything else, like sports, because her hair gets in the way. The school told me she should get it cut so she can have her freedom like other girls her age.

'People stare. Sometimes, they call out at Natasha in the street and try to touch her hair.

'We spend about about £400 a year on shampoo, which is a lot of money for us.

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