Zendaya and Tom Holland, Hollywood darlings and dubbed by fans as undeniable relationship goals, have captured hearts as one of the most adored celeb duos. But you know what’s interesting? They’ve gone all out to keep their relationship pretty low-key. Even though everyone’s head over heels for them, they kept their love story under wraps, only admitting to it way after those sneaky paparazzi shots of them sharing a kiss at a red light in July 2021.
So, get this straight from the horse’s mouth – in an interview for ELLE’s September cover story (before the SAG-AFTRA strike), Zendaya spilled the tea on why she’s so gung-ho about keeping her affair with the MARVEL superstar off the radar. She’s 26, she’s a star on “Euphoria,” and she dished out some wisdom:
“Parts of my life, I accept, are going to be public. I can’t not be a person and live my life and love the person I love.”
And she wasn’t done there:
“But also, I do have control over what I choose to share. It’s about protect the peace and letting things be your own but also not being afraid to exist. You can’t hide. That’s not fun, either.
I am navigating it more than ever now.”
While Zendaya’s been in the limelight since her days as a kiddo model, she admitted that you never really get used to being a 24/7 target for photos, especially when you’re caught in less-than-stellar situations. She good-naturedly recalled a time when she was dealing with a card hiccup at a store and folks were snapping away:
“I was just like, ‘Why? You see I’m flustered.’”
And then, the story of her and Noon, her dog, in Italy. The pesky paparazzi were lurking as she prayed they wouldn’t catch her in the act of cleaning up after her furry friend:
“I had this idea of, like, I can walk around Venice. No, I can’t. I had to pick up his poo, and I was like, ‘Lord, please, don’t take a picture of me picking up my dog’s s**t.’ There’s a picture of me holding the bag, but thankfully they spared the grabbing and the putting it in the bag part.”
Her main man Tom Holland? He’s on the same page. He let it all out in a previous chat with GQ, talking about those kissy photos from July. Those pics hit him and Zendaya hard:
“One of the downsides of our fame is that privacy isn’t really in our control anymore, and a moment that you think is between two people that love each other very much is now a moment that is shared with the entire world.
I’ve always been really adamant to keep my private life private, because I share so much of my life with the world anyway.”
He revealed that he and Zendaya both “sort of felt robbed of our privacy” when the kissing photos surfaced.
