Inside Zendaya's Bad Experience With Disney

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Zendaya Coleman has the type of star-power that requires no surname — like the Drakes, Madonnas, and Chers that came before her. This didn't happen overnight. First, the actress-slash-singer had to shake the nearly unshakable stigma associated with being a Disney Channel star, something she was adeptly able to achieve without cutting off her extensions or posing nearly-nude in Vanity Fair like Miley Cyrus. Zendaya never got caught in a drug (ahem, salvia) scandal, though she does play a teenage drug addict on HBO. She never got a DUI. There were no nude photo scandals that severed her ties with her mouse overlord (though her Euphoria character does admit that nudes are the modern "currency of love"). Actually, Vogue describes the actress as "insanely normal," which may be part of the reason she was able to transition into more adult roles while simultaneously starring on K.C. Undercover.

Just because Zendaya was able to leave the Disney Channel relatively unscathed, that doesn't mean it was an easy road. If it wasn't for her constant push-back on the network notoriously known for imposing strict rules on its young actors, she would have never become a different kind of Disney star, the kind that uses her voice for activism, rejects the brand's narrow portrayal of adolescence, and even penned her own memoir. Here's a look inside Zendaya's difficult ride with Disney.

When Zendaya was just starting out in Hollywood, her career actually tore her family apart — if only physically. The actress was lucky enough to have ultra-supportive parents, who fought for their daughter's dreams even though it meant splitting up their family.

In an interview with Glamour, Zendaya revealed that her father, who was a teacher, quit his job to help her pursue her acting career. When she was in middle school, the pair would drive back and forth from Oakland to Los Angeles for auditions. Her mother took on two jobs to pick up the slack and pay for all of the trips. She was a staffer at the California Shakespeare Theater and a teacher, but this kept her tied to the Bay Area. When Zendaya landed her role on Shake It Up and had to make a more long-term move to Hollywood, the actress was forced to leave her mother behind.

"I got my first job on the Disney Channel when I was 13, and it was just me and my dad in an apartment in downtown L.A.," Zendaya told Glamour. "It was very difficult because I was dealing with all the pivotal girl moments. I remember getting my period and him not knowing what to do. It was a weird transitional phase."

As the daughter of two teachers, Zendaya cared about her education, but signing onto a Disney series meant she'd have to pull double duty to get the same schooling as her non-famous peers. Most teens don't work all day on set; they work for a couple of hours after school. Even though Zendaya's plate was immeasurably full, she wasn't about to cut corners.

In an interview with Glamour, the actress revealed that some of her peers would "cheat their way through" online classes. "They'd just look up the answers and type them in," she said. "That's insane to me." Instead, her mother became her educational advocate, writing letters to Disney's lawyers justifying her need for a particular teacher. This was a person who was willing to work with Zendaya everywhere — her press tours, her hotel rooms, while traveling via car, plane, or train, etc. and she had a tough love approach. 

"In the hotel room. She'd be like, 'Are you tired? I don't care,'" Zendaya said. "I remember doing Dancing With the Stars and literally falling asleep reading a book. I'd never been so tired in my life — there's no off time. But she stuck with me and made sure I got what I needed."

When the Disney Channel came to Zendaya with the idea for K.C. Undercover, she was already a little wary about re-appearing on the network. After Shake It Up ended, the star was exploring other facets of her career. She appeared in Taylor Swift's music video for "Bad Blood" and had proven she could hold down a feature-length film with the Disney Channel original movie Zapped. If the network wanted her to sign onto another series, they'd have to shake things up — and that meant putting Zendaya in charge.

In the past, Disney has given some of their stars production roles. Debby Ryan was nearing her 20s when she was named a producer on Jessie. According to Vogue, Zendaya was just 16 when she met with execs and made her demands. In an interview with Cosmopolitan, the actress revealed, "The only way I was going to come back to the Disney Channel was if I was in a position of more power."

According to Glamour, Disney met her demands, and Zendaya became one of the youngest producers in Disney Channel history. According to her IMDb credits, she was a co-producer on a whopping 43 episodes and a producer on nine. The series also helped her step into the big leagues when it came to work behind-the-scenes. In 2018, Deadline announced that the actress be working with Reese Witherspoon to produce a thriller called A White Lie.

Zendaya has always fought for representation, which is why she wore dreadlocks to the 2015 Academy Awards. That was the same year K.C. Undercover premiered, and it seemed like a radical statement coming from a star on a network better known for its absurd use of hair extensions than for showcasing people of color. This was only emphasized by Giuliana Rancic's now-infamous Fashion Police comments. The TV host claimed Zendaya must've smelled like "patchouli oil" or "weed" because of her hairstyle.

In an interview with Vogue, Zendaya admitted she "went to [her] room" to collect her thoughts after hearing the comments, then wrote up a blistering — but truthful — statement on Instagram, slamming Rancic for perpetuating harmful stereotypes. "I'll have you know my father, brother, best childhood friend, and little cousins all have locs," she wrote. " ... There is already harsh criticism of African American hair in society without the help of ignorant people who choose to judge others based on the curl of their hair. My wearing my hair in locs on an Oscar red carpet was to showcase them in a positive light, to remind people of color that our hair is good enough."

Rancic, of course, released a public apology — which Zendaya accepted — but the damage was already done. According to The Washington Post, Kelly Osbourne quit Fashion Police days later, and The Wrap reports that the show was temporarily pulled from the network.

As a former child star, Zendaya is well-versed in the PR rounds. The actress has endured a veritable metric ton of photo shoots in her decade-long Disney career. She knows what to expect, and that's perhaps the sad reason why she was so nonchalant about W's apparent cover gaffe. It wasn't the first time something like that has happened. In an interview with Cosmopolitan, the Euphoria star revealed that in the past, she's had some incidents "on-set with people being racially insensitive," including an exchange with her own publicist.

"I didn't like my hair and makeup one time on a photo shoot," Zendaya said. "And my publicist told me, 'You should just be happy with it — they haven't had a black girl on the cover since forever.' She's no longer my publicist."

In that same interview, Zendaya readily admitted that her lighter skin gives her more privilege "compared to [her] darker sisters and brothers," and she felt a "responsibility to be a voice for the beautiful shades my people come in." In other words: she won't be silenced, especially as Hollywood casting agents still somehow struggle to label mixed race talent. "It's a hard thing in Hollywood when you're mixed," her mother, Claire Stoermer, told Vogue. "You're not white enough to be white, and you're not black enough to be black." 

It wasn't easy for Zendaya to break out of her shell and become an adult actress with serious roles. It's definitely something she's struggled with since leaving the network. Even these days, some of her most prominent roles have still technically been Disney affiliated, like her part in The Greatest Showman or her role as Michelle in Marvel's Spider-Man flicks alongside Tom Holland. "Having a Disney past sometimes makes it difficult for people to take you seriously, so I have to pick the right projects, make sure I do the right things, take my time," she told Glamour in 2017.

In 2019, Zendaya took the risk that seemingly launched this new facet of her career — though it didn't completely sever her from her Disney star image. She nabbed the role of Rue in HBO's edgy teen drama Euphoria. "I still get the corny stuff. It's cool," Zendaya told The New York Times. "I feel like I can do [Euphoria] and still have another world outside of it where I can do family movies and fun things like that."