If “Zendaya” is a name you’re not familiar with yet, be ready to become familiarized.
You may know her from the recent drama with Giuliana Rancic, but we’ll get to that.
For now, the Disney Channel star is quickly catching people’s attention. She handles herself very maturely for just being 18, and her red carpet style is perfection.
She got her start in 2010 by being cast as one of the two female leads in Shake It Up!, on Disney Channel. Her and Bella Thorne played Rocky Blue and CeCe Jones, respectively. The two were dancers from Chicago, auditioning and dancing for Chicago’s number one dance show. The two starred in one Disney Channel Movie together, Frenemies, and Thorne can now be seen in the new movie, The D.U.F.F.
Zendaya’s dancing skills showed as she was cast in the sixteenth season of Dancing With The Stars in 2013, her partner being the Val Chmerkovskiy. She finished the season as runner-up, only to be beaten by Kellie Pickler and Derek Hough. She was the show’s youngest contestant, at 16.
What’s funnier is Roshon Fegan, who plays Rocky’s brother in Shake It Up! was also cast on Dancing With The Stars two seasons earlier, but was eliminated in week 10.
On Jan. 18, 2015, Disney Channel launched Zendaya’s new show K.C. Undercover, where she stars as the lead. Her character, K.C. Cooper, is a young spy-in-training, eager to follow in her parents’ footsteps. This is the first African-American family featured in their own show on Disney Channel since the days of That’s So Raven, Cory In The House, and The Proud Family.
She’s released one self-titled album under Hollywood Records on Sept. 17, 2013. The album features 11 songs, all urban pop inspired. The lead single was “Replay,” which if you remember, kind of ruled the late summer of 2013.
She was set to appear as Aaliyah in a Lifetime biopic, but dropped out in July of 2014. She gave her reasons via a few videos on Instagram. You can read all that she said in this US Magazine article.
Giuliana Rancic made a comment about her hair at the Oscars. To catch you up to speed, the beautiful and always flawless Zendaya wore her hair in dreadlocks to the event, wanting to showcase and appreciate her ethnicity.
Rancic proceeded to say that her hair looked like it smelled of “patchouli oil” and “maybe weed” on the popular show Fashion Police.
Of course, the racist comment was met by lots of media backlash. Zendaya sent out a statement via Twitter on the subject, and basically hits every important point. That’s right girl, do you.
Kelly Osbourne is leaving Fashion Police as a result of the comment Rancic made, according to US Magazine.
Rancic later apologized and Zendaya accepted her apology.
So why should you love Zendaya? Or at least be familiarized with her? Because she’s a young, strong, independent woman.
…And she can literally rock any hairstyle known to man, she may as well be the next Rihanna, with her singing, acting, and dancing skills.
*Rest of info taken from Zendaya’s IMDb