We'll confess: This certainly won't be the first time we've waxed poetic about Zendaya here at R29. We've marveled at her inspiring comments about ugliness, and recounted how often she is the smartest person in the room. So, it should come as no surprise that when we got the chance to meet her, we came away with a plenty of sage sound bites.
We caught up with the preternaturally wise 19-year-old at the brand-new Sephora at The Grove in Los Angeles, where she spilled her secret to dealing with internet trolls. "You have to be secure in who you are before you get on the internet," she told us. "I don't know what I was watching, but someone like Eddie Murphy or Arsenio Hall said that allowing someone you don't know, like an internet person, to affect you and hurt you is like driving a car and allowing a stranger to get in your car, scream terrible things at you, and then jump out. It just doesn't make sense. You'd be like, 'What the hell? Get out of my car!'"
Clearly, internet trolls know no boundaries — something Demi Lovato, for one, knows all too well. After news broke that Barbie honored Zendaya with a doll made in her own likeness, Lovato came under fire for her tweet asking, "What about a curvy doll or one with true to size measurements?" She was labeled a hater and accused of stealing the spotlight from Zendaya. But, as we've come to expect, Zendaya took the controversy in stride. "Honestly, [Demi] was really, really nice about it. She texted me. I don't think she meant harm by it, obviously. But she does have a big point: We do have Barbies that are missing."
She went on to tell us that while she's pushing for diversity right now, it's not lost on her that there are other issues to tackle, including acceptance of different body shapes. At the end of the day, there's no bad blood between the stars (yes, we went there). "I really appreciate that she reached out, even though I don't personally get my feelings hurt very easily. But she took the time to make sure there was nothing wrong, which was really cool and big of her."
You keep doing you, Zendaya — we'll definitely be here watching.
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