‘I would like to be a person’ Zendaya speaks about not being cut out for fame

Zendaya makes fame look easy … but that doesn’t mean she actually finds it easy.

During a recent Q&A for the movie Dune: Part Two, Zendaya and the rest of the cast were asked if they found parallels to the messianic figure Paul Atreides in their own celebrity lives. Zendaya had a very interesting answer to the question.

“I feel like, often, I am not cut out for that part of it [the celebrity lifestyle],” she said. “I do love my job, I’m so grateful. I love doing the work, I love being on set, I do love moments like this—don’t get me wrong—but I am terrified of that part of it, often.”

Zendaya is considered one of the most beautiful and self-assured stars of her era. She’s starred as MJ in the MCU Spider-Man films, she’s sung her heart out in The Greatest Showman, and she won two Emmys for her role in Euphoria. But beneath the surface, she explained, things are more complicated than fans might imagine.

“I was a shy kid, always have been, and so this part isn’t natural—that is a huge reason why fashion became important to me because it became like armor to pretend to go out and do the job,” she said. Zendaya has often won praise for her fashion sense; it’s another thing that’s put her on the map as a star to watch.

“So I don’t know if I, either, can fully relate, but I definitely understand what you’re saying, and I think that’s what’s terrifying to me,” she went on. “I would like to be a person and for people to see me as that first. I don’t necessarily know if I want or can handle all of that or want [that] — some people that’s part of it, they enjoy the power that comes from it, and I don’t know if that’s for me.”

That “I would like to be a person” says so much in just seven words. The pressures of fame have formed part of an ongoing conversation recently as superstars such as Chappell Roan have started laying down boundaries. She pointed out in a TikTok aimed at parasocial fans, “If you saw a random woman on the street, would you yell at her from the car window?” Her argument was that fans have no actual relationship with her, no matter how great they think her songs are, and aren’t entitled to her time or energy. And she’s far from the first or last celebrity to feel that way.

Zendaya began her career as a child star on the Disney Channel, and child stardom is an immensely difficult thing to have to deal with, so it’s not surprising that she would have mixed feelings about fame. But it’s good to know that she’s able to express her thoughts about it in a healthy way.