She is the real life Rapunzel with 55ft long dreadlocks that are longer than a bus.

Despite being warned by doctors that her hair that weighs three stone could paralyse her, Asha Mandela said she will never cut them.

The mother-of-one from Atlanta, Georgia, said: ‘My hair has become part of me. It is my life. I will never cut it.

‘Cutting it would be equivalent to suicide. It would be like being a zombie.’

Mrs Mandela, 47, holds the Guinness World Record for the longest dreadlocks.

It takes two days to wash and dry her hair, which weighs the same as a reception-age child, and is even heavier when wet.

It can also get easily trapped in doors or snag on bushes.

But Mrs Mandela worries that ‘someone with a hair fetish’ will cut off a lock of her hair when she is not looking.

Doctors have also asked her to consider cutting her hair for health reasons, including the risk of bacterial infection.

But their main concern is the weight.

She said: ‘The doctors seem to think I have a curvature of my spine and that it’s the length and the weight of my hair that’s making me curve.

Mrs Mandela, who is happily married to her third husband, was born in Trinidad and Tobago.

She began growing her hair 25 years ago following a ‘spiritual calling’.