Zendaya Ignores Giuliana Rancic On Red Carpet; Why They're Beefing In The First Place
Why are they having an issue?
Getty When you hear the background of the Zendaya/Giuliana Rancic feud, you can't help but root for Zendaya. After all, too many people have gotten away with too much mess for far too long, and good for Zendaya for not letting Giuliana Rancic slide for the disrespect. So why are Zendaya and Giuliana Rancic feuding?
Born Zendaya Maree Stoermer Coleman in Oakland, California, the actress who has become known solely as Zendaya got her start on the Disney Channel show Shake it Up, where she played Rocky Blue. Since then, she's gone on to have a successful adult acting career that includes roles The Greatest Showman and the Spider-Man movies Homecoming and Far From Home. Most recently she's been heating up the HBO hit Euphoria. She also released two songs, "Swag It Out" and "Watch Me" back in 2011, and has enjoyed a successful career since.
But Zendaya and Guiliana Rancic have been feuding for a long time. Let's take a look at why.
1. Giuliana Rancic made a racist comment about Zendaya.
Zendaya's father is African-American, while her mother is a white American with German & Scottish ancestry. So, according to People, it came as a bit of a shock when Giuliana Rancic made a comment about Zendaya's dreadlocks "smelling like weed and patchouli" on the red carpet (when, frankly, Zendaya looked beautiful). Giuliana subsequently backtracked and tried to make it sound like she meant that Zendaya looked "bohemian," but then the question begs itself: as a journalist, you know your fair share of SAT words, so why not say "bohemian" instead of that clearly ignorant comment?
2. Zendaya made it clear that she thought Giuliana Rancic's comment was racist.
Shortly after Giuliana Rancic made the "weed & patchouli" comment, Zendaya took to her Instagram to explain why there were so many layers of wrong in Giuliana Rancic's comment. Check it out below.
3. Giuliana Rancic tried to apologize, again, to Zendaya.
Giuliana Rancic then took to the E! News cameras to apologize to Zendaya. She said that she looked at it as a learning experience and that she was always trying to do better as a journalist and a person. She said that she didn't want to be seen as someone who was a "racist," and she hoped that people didn't see her as something she wasn't. Check out her video apology below.
4. But critics say that Giuliana Rancic pretty well destroyed her career with the comment.
"Kelly Osbourne warned Rancic not to make the weed remark (which she may or may not have done in three separate takes) because Zendaya was a "friend of the show" and had actually appeared on the program three times before the Oscars incident," said Nicki Swift, who added that Rancic left Fashion Police shortly after the incident.
5. Zendaya said that she accepted Giuliana Rancic's apology.
After Giuliana Rancic apologized to Zendaya, Zendaya took to her social media, again, to say she accepted the apology and was moving forward with grace. She quoted Martin Luther King Jr. and said that she chose to "move forward with love" when it came to Giuliana Rancic, and she didn't want to keep revisiting the issue. However, she refused to talk to Giuliana Rancic on the carpet thereafter and would skip over her for the next few years.
6. Giuliana Rancic hasn't fully recovered, and as a result, she's left E!
Giuliana Rancic wasn't able to ever fully recover from the Zendaya controversy, and it didn't help that people refused to engage her on the red carpet afterward and stood in solidarity with Zendaya. As a result, said Radar Online, she decided to leave E! News to spend time with her family. "Fans were shocked when Rancic was chosen to take over the coveted spot at E!, but a close friend of the star told Radar that “After the #MeToo movement, Giuliana’s… ‘patchouli oil’ remarks over Zendaya’s dreadlocks seemed trivial," reported the outlet, who added that she then realized she couldn't survive in the current pop culture climate and chose to leave the industry altogether.
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Guess we'll learn to think before we talk!
Bernadette Giacomazzo is an editor, writer, and photographer whose work has appeared in People, Teen Vogue, Us Weekly, The Source, XXL, HipHopDX, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Post, and more. She is also the author of The Uprising series. For more information about Bernadette Giacomazzo, click here.