Potomac's Katie Rost Rocks Her Natural Hair at the NAACP Image Awards

Katie Rost brought her Real Housewives of Potomac gentility to Los Angeles last week for the 47th Annual NAACP Image Awards on Friday. As Katie walked the red carpet at the yearly awards ceremony celebrating the artistic achievements of people of color, she also debuted a brand-new 'do that showed off her natural hair. "What a night!" Katie wrote on Instagram. "We celebrated and amplified diversity, artistry and the best of what Hollywood has to offer at the 47th NAACP image awards."

Katie also posted a makeup-free selfie after her hair transformation.

"It's always scary to be real, but freedom is on the other side of fear," Katie tweeted about her decision to sport her natural hair at the NAACP Image Awards Friday.

This was the first time Katie was able to enjoy the NAACP Image Awards as a guest rather than as a reporter, as she previously worked the red carpet for the entertainment news show Direct Access with Big Tigger. "I used to be an entertainment reporter trying to get good sound bites from all the celebrities who were walking the red carpet and sort of hanging out outside of the parties, trying to get them as they're walking in," Katie told The Daily Dish over the phone from L.A. a day before the ceremony. "Now to be here and to be invited as a guest of TV One is really exciting for me, that I get to sit in the room with all of these real actors."

Katie was especially honored to attend the NAACP Image Awards with TV One's CEO and Chairman Alfred Liggins since she is now on a show that contributes to the image of African-American women in the media and is very much about racial identity. "I get to sit there in that room with them and know that I'm creating an image also that's being seen by millions of people that's changing a lot of the conversations about race and about a lot of the issues that we haven't really dealt with within stereotypes and not really understanding or being too limiting to other people about what their racial identity means for us all," Katie said. "It's a big deal, a very big deal. I'm really happy I got invited."

Katie's mother Rynthia Rost also looked stunning at the ceremony.

Considering the recent controversy over the lack of diversity in this year's Academy Awards nominations, Katie said that she is glad honors like the NAACP Image Awards exist. "I really, really, really think that this is such an important year for the NAACP Image Awards because there really has been a whiteout in the Oscars process. African-American actors or people of color are not being recognized, are not being celebrated, and there needs to be recognition of the diversity and the different types of roles that people of color can take on in Hollywood," she explained. "I think it's a really big year, and I think that supporting the images that portray African Americans and people of color and all of the rainbow that we are is really important."

Katie had an important discussion about racial identity with her RHOP castmates Gizelle Bryant and Robyn Dixon earlier this season, which you can relive, below.

#RHOP 'Wives Ask: What Box Will Katie's Kids Check?