10 THINGS YOU DON'T KNOW ABOUT ZENDAYA
ZENDAYA is only 22, but the former Disney kid is already an accomplished actress and singer — and was the runner-up on season 16 of Dancing with the Stars after being edged out by Kellie Pickler! This summer, she’s starring as love interest M.J. to Tom Holland’s titular superhero in SpiderMan: Far From Home. Here are ten things you don’t know about the California native.
1 She has five older halfsiblings on her father’s side and says, “I was born an auntie,” and has a niece and nephew older than she is.
2 Though she admits to failing spelling tests in second grade, she insists, “I always had to take school very seriously” because both of her parents are teachers.
3 As a kid, she started her professional career modeling for Macy’s and Old Navy.
4 She was a backup dancer for Selena Gomez in a 2009 Sears commercial before scoring her big Disney Channel role as Rocky Blue in Shake It Up.
5 Zendaya insists she’s obsessed with perfect eyebrows. “I call it browfection,” she notes.
6 After Giuliana Rancic rudely snarked dreadlocked Zendaya looked like she smelled of “patchouli oil” or “weed” at the 2015 Academy Awards, Mattel honored her with a Barbie doll that replicated her Oscar look.
7 She adopted a black miniature schnauzer named Noon in December 2015 — and enlisted the help of TV’s Dog Whisperer Cesar Millan to manage the excitable pup.
8 For the 2018 Heavenly Bodies Met Gala, she wore chain mail and a cropped wig to channel French heroine and Catholic martyr Joan of Arc.
9 She’s a vegetarian but admits she “doesn’t like vegetables too much.”
10 She loves ice cream — especially the coffee-flavored kind. “If you’re with me long enough, you will be eating ice cream on a daily basis, and I just can’t help it. I call it the Zendaya diet,” the starlet says.