Zendaya spilled all during a recent interview — getting real about her complicated feelings towards child stardom, having kids and watching boyfriend Tom Holland undergo huge lifestyle changes. Keep reading for a breakdown on everything she said.
“We were both very, very young, but my career was already kind of going, and his changed overnight,” Zendaya told Vogue in a cover story for the May 2024 British and American issues, on newsstands April 23.
“One day you’re a kid and you’re at the pub with your friends, and then the next day you’re Spider-Man,” she said of her longtime beau. “I definitely watched his life kind of change in front of him. But he handled it really beautifully.”
The actress got her start on Disney Channel, starring in several shows and movies like Shake It Up, K.C. Undercover and Zapped. Following the release of Quiet on Set: The Dark Days of TV in March 2024, which documented toxic work environments that child stars oftentimes face while on TV sets, Zendaya was asked about her feelings towards acting at such a young age.
Now, the Euphoria star admitted to having complicated feelings about children in the limelight.
“I don’t know how much of a choice I had,” she said of her early roles. “I have complicated feelings about kids and fame and being in the public eye, or being a child actor. We’ve seen a lot of cases of it being detrimental … And I think only now, as an adult, am I starting to go, ‘Oh, OK, wait a minute: I’ve only ever done what I’ve known, and this is all I’ve known,'” she explained. “I’m almost going through my angsty teenager phase now, because I didn’t really have the time to do it before. I felt like I was thrust into a very adult position: I was becoming the breadwinner of my family very early, and there was a lot of role-reversal happening, and just kind of becoming grown, really.”
The former Disney star also admitted she doesn’t “necessarily” want her future “kids to have to deal with this.”
She questioned, “And what does my future look like? Am I going to be a public-facing person forever?”
Not only that Zendaya also revealed her “massive anxiety” over losing her longtime fans because they may perceive her as “boring.”
“This idea that people will just be like, ‘Actually, I know I’ve been with you since you were 14, but I’m over you now because you’re boring.'”
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