Zendaya has responded to E! host Giuliana Rancic‘s on-air apology for a joke she made about the actress’ dreadlocks hairstyle, which the Disney Channel star felt had racist connotations.
During Fashion Police‘s post-Oscars special on Monday, Rancic implied that the K.C. Undercover actress’ hair smelled like marijuana.
“Giuliana, I appreciate your apology and I’m glad it was a learning experience for you and for the network,” Zendaya wrote on Twitter on Wednesday.
Read the full statement below.
http://t.co/q1nV60KkTD—
(@Zendaya) February 25, 2015
Ready for more of today’s newsy nuggets? Well…
* The Walking Dead‘s Season 5 finale, which will air March 29 at 9/8c, has been extended to 90 minutes.
* The pilot for TV Land’s Younger, starring Sutton Foster (Bunheads), is available to watch for free via Amazon Instant Video. The comedy, about a single mother in her early 40s whose stalled publishing career is revitalized when she lies and passes herself off as a twentysomething, premieres March 31.
* In promos for her Saturday Night Live hosting debut this weekend, Dakota Johnson (with Taran Killam) begs mom Melanie Griffith to go see Fifty Shades of Grey, mulls nicknames and more:
Time to move to the Bermuda Triangle…God i hate our P.C. society.
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Let me recap that response:
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“G: You are secretly racist and you don’t even know it, you can’t even help it your (white peoples) racism is so deep in your subconscious.
I’m so important, i have so many people follow me and have so many fans that care so much i just HAVE to respond, for “WE”, for us all…cause you said my hair smells like weed let us march. MLK quote” the end.
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Good Lord. So self righteous, pretentious, and hyper sensitive. Its not like the Rastafarian culture has basically the biggest connection to weed of any culture…oh wait! Let alone the hypocrisy of if under a polygraph it turns out she does smoke weed, maybe even that day lol…the irony of the outrage to G’s comment if in the past few days she did smoke.
Thank you m3rcnate. I started to read her response and almost vomited.
Preach!!!!
Grow up
I swear, people want to get offended. No one takes anything in the context it’s given- they always look for a way to twist things people say into racist, bigoted, prejudiced attacks. If it was meant that way, than Juliana is an idiot. But if it wasn’t, and I don’t think it was, then just ignore it. The problem gets bigger when you give it too much attention.
You said it! I took it as a foot in mouth moment and nothing else. She has apologized…TWICE. Let it die please.
G apologized let it go.. She should have said. That hair is horrible! Looks like she is balding.. And her dress makes her look fat.. Would that have made Zendaya and her wannabe friend Kelly Osborne happy…
Well said, David!
The thing that bothers me with her outrage is that marijuana is a major part of the Rastafarian religion. It’s not a negative thing to them and something they take pride in because it connects them to the Earth. She’s essentially admitting that she vainly appropriated another religion to make herself feel powerful when she herself is pretty ignorant to that culture.
Well said!
I think you need to understand the situation better. Locs do not belong to Rastafarians, though it is a popular look amongst them.
The look is no more appropriated by her, then it is by any other person who decides to wear it.
She is responding to how, on a woman of colour, the look bring out one response, and on someone else, it’s “Edgy”.
Before you call out ignorance, do some research yourself.
PREACH!!! :)
Zendaya’s a social justice warrior, most celebs are.
What is wrong with these people? Do they not know enough not to say stupid comments like that? Her apology is meaningless because the damage is already done. You can’t take back hateful words that have been heard by the whole bloody world.
Wasn’t hateful, ma’am. Dumb, maybe, but not hateful or racist.
Just because you say so?
Yup!
Because the context was obvious. It didn’t feel like a dig, it was a poor attempt at a joke. Aisha Tyler even said that if Joan Rivers had said it, no one would care because they’d know what the context was. What no one is reporting is that she said “patouli oil” first and then added after the fact…”or weed.” She seemed to be referencing the Coachella hipster crowd but because she’s half black, it read differently. At the end of the day, we are putting too much effort into something that was said on Fashion Police.
I love your last sentence so much.
PC crap on both sides. Giuliana Rancic make a thoughtless comment on a thoughtless network about someone’s hair. It was a comment about hair. HAIR. She didn’t call her names or throw garbage at her or make fat jokes about Z’s mother. She made a comment about Z’s stupid hairstyle (yes, it was) and now she’s having to eat humble pie for it while Z’s gets to stand on a pedestal and act all humble and forgive her while making it all about race. The whole thing is stupid and blown out proportion. No, Z’s doesn’t smoke marijuana, she’s just sporting a hairstyle made popular by a group of people who famously do. Dreadlocks are not an African hairstyle, they are a Caribbean hairstyle made popular by immigrants from Caribbean islands. So, unless her father is from the Caribbean, she’s actually celebrating the wrong culture. And isn’t the whole point of walking a red carpet is to be seen and judged by the commentators? Isn’t that was Joan Rivers was famous for? Isn’t that what Z’s very best friend Kelly does for a living–make mean and snarky comments about people’s hair and clothes?
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They both need to get over themselves and focus on actual problems in the world, like that fact that within a few miles of this ceremony celebrating the rich and fabulous is the largest community of homeless veterans in the United States. Funny how despite how “political” the night was, no one mentioned them.
I agree with what you said. I do not watch the show but I know what it is all about. I am sure it Z was not Kelly’s friend the issue would not have gotten so big.
FYI dreadlocks are not solely a Caribbean immigrant hairstyle and have been worn in several cultures around the world for pretty much all of recorded history. But thanks for dropping your fake knowledge on us. I’d hate to get caught celebrating the wrong culture.
delivery was off but I believe it was a dig at how awful her hair was, (Which incidentally was 100% correct). The Disney Princess took it out of context and made a mountain out of a mold hill. Personally her response is condescending, but hopefully this whole incident is over with. Way more important things going on in the world beside her hurt feelings because they said they didn’t like her look on the red carpet.
Is the picture of the walker in the upper right hand box from the 90-minute Walking Dead finale? It’s frightfully fantastic!
I don’t know you, but I can tell you that you can probably make a better joke.
People need to learn that
A. Something can be offensive without being racist.
and B. It’s time to grow a thicker skin.
The comment was stupid, not racist. It might have been personally offensive, but it wasn’t a societal catastrophe. Honestly, with all of the things happening in the world right now, the whole thing seems childish. People need to stop looking for opportunities to claim racism, because the whole thing has lost its meaning at this point.
Everyone is a professional victim now.
Seriously. You’d think that we could set our priorities as a nation and be a little bit more mature. I mean, Patricia Arquette can’t even afford to put food on the table and these people are bickering over something stupid that was said on a show about Oscar fashion. I wish they could just put their differences aside and come together to help Patricia Arquette and the other starving celebrities in the world.
How did she claim to be a victim? Someone said something mean about her and she gave a measured response. Are people not allowed to do that anymore?
Amen to this!
Couldn’t agree more. Done reading about this overblown story.
Is anyone else of such matters played out in the Twitterverse?
This may end up being the best thing that could have ever happened to this girl at this point of her career. I NEVER heard of Zendaya before this. And I am sure 99% of the world had not either. She should probably be thanking Rancic instead! That being said, I wouldn’t care if she, Rancic and Osbourne all went away — so I may not be the best person to comment about this overblown “non-story.”
I mean really people! Who is Zendaya anyway? She was on Dancing w/ Stars and ????? Oh that’s right and THE FASHION POLICE!! Yes she was on an episode or two in the past and yes she critiqued the celebs so she knows the tone of the show & I’m sure she knows Giuliana didn’t mean it maliciously. So please just let it go already.
Zendaya is one of the biggest up and coming actresses currently in Hollywood. She’s had 2 hit series on Disney Channel and released her debut album on Hollywood Records. Sure people who aren’t in her demographic might only know her from DWTS but she’s a talented girl with a huge career ahead of her.
Let’s not embellish here. She’s a Disney Channel actor who just started her second series on the kid channel and has been falling into mediocrity. This fiasco basically pushed her into the mainstream with a much more mature demo.
Ahhhhhhh…..didn’t know that….GREAT POINT! Oversensitive brat…
I like Guiliana Rancic and don’t think her comments were meant to be racist but she really has no room to talk about anyone’s appearance when she’s been looking so horrible lately.
“I’m glad it was a learning experience for you and for the network” can you be any more condescending. I find this more offensive than anything Guiliana said. She’s loving all the attention and milking it for every thing she can. Just shut it.
The best thing about this article is we’re finally getting a 90 minute finale’ of The Walking Dead. Now this is worth talking about. It’s about damn time, lol.
Also I seriously doubt she even wrote that response. Sounds like something that came from a publicist to me.
The biggest issue I have with this is that Giulliana wants to talk to the stars on the red carpet or interview them on E News but then on Fashion Police ridicules them or their career. It’s totally acceptable to mock their dresses or hairstyle because that’s the whole point of FP. But personal jabs seems like a conflict when later you suck up to them on the red carpet. I remember once she was talking to Lucy Liu at an event and then the next week on FP she said something along the lines of Liu being irrelevant. Giulliana is no Joan Rivers and has always tried to be outrageously comedic to match wits with her on the show. Even Kathy Griffin knows not to try to be like Rivers cause there was only one. Plus Giulliana has the worst critiques on the show her sense of fashion stinks.
So we (and especially Kelly) has total double standards when it comes to Joan’s comments and Giulianas? This whole situation is pathetic
Yep!!! Kelly is a hypocrite… She could have toned down her comments but no she is like her trash mouth mother. Kelly has cried because people were mean to the (overweight) Kelly yet she earns her living trashing others… Beside FP has always been a snarkfest. You are right Kelly has two (faced) standards…
Not a Guiliana fan, nor a Zendaya fan (CERTAINLY not a fan of that hairstyle *shudder*!) All that said, it was a dumb remark, and anybody with three functioning brain cells coulda told her it would be taken the way it was, blown out of proportion and turned into a “thing” to garner attention for somebody. (hmmm, wonder who???) Z, of course, sounds like she swallowed all of Dr. King’s writings, and whether or not the sentiment is totally sincere, the pomposity in the statements still shines through. Since when does a person of her age need to say more than “well, THAT was tacky!” and when accepting an apology “thanks for that. let’s move on.” too many people feel they have to speak “for posterity” when in fact posterity couldn’t give a rip. Gawd knows i don’t.
Can we talk about how unbearable boring Dakota Johnson is? I swear, my post-brush toothpaste is more interesting than she is.
I like Dakota! I see a ton of articles about her being bitter or moody and then I watch the videos and realize that she just has a really weird sense of humor and nobody gets it, which just makes me like her more.
For the record, I was a fan from the Ben and Kate days. I haven’t seen Fifty Shades.
Two lessons learned by Rancic
1. If you can’t take the heat, don’t make the comment. There was only one Joan Rivers, nobody is looking for a replacement.
2. Don’t mess with Disney, especially now when they own a chunk of a lot of tv nowadays. Her reservations to Disneyworld probably just got lost. LOL
Lol
good news The Walking Dead’s season finale will be longer!
Damn Zendaya handled this entire thing with sass and class.
Right?
So young and so well put together.
how is alluding to giuliana being too thin and then saying i’m too mature to go there in the next breath any better than outright body shaming her? it’s hard for me to feel sympathy for someone outraged at being judged by her appearance when she turns around and sneakily does the same thing to someone else while claiming to be above it all.
I think she was responding to a lot of her defenders who were saying things along the line that Giuliana had no room to mock her hair while being so thin. I find that reasoning problematic as well, and I’m glad she didn’t let it go unchecked.
i understood what she was trying to say..i just didn’t care for the phrasing. it felt more like she was propping herself up saying i could have sunk to her level but i didn’t. maybe it’s just coming off that way to me..the whole response reads a bit condescending to me. for the record i’m not defending what giuliana said either but this whole thing is being blown out of proportion. 95% of that show is trash talking how people look and what they wear. i don’t understand why people are suddenly so worked up about it when they have habitually said worse. i guess most of that gets a pass because it was joan. lesson to be learned..if you are going to be offensive you’d better make sure you are funny and offensive..or prepare yourself.
Reading the comments section of this site always reminds me why we have a race problem in this country. G’s comment was ignorant and continued the perpetuation of negative stereotypes associated with certain hairstyles. Z had the right to be hurt and respond. Would you not respond if that was said of you in a national form especially if you are trying to keep a wholesome image? Just look at this forum, people are saying they’ve seen somewhere that she admitted smoking weed. Many people have to deal with the real issue of being judged for having their hair like. On this site I’ve seen countless “these and those people”. That is usually the beginning of a statement by someone that has not been subject to certain kinds of mistreatment. Many have said that Joan Rivers could have said the comment and gotten away with it. Joan had a skill and had crafted her skill over a lifetime. To try to equate G with Joan is an insult in itself. If G had left the comment at the hair was too big she would have been OK. She chose to leave fashion and make other comments. Also as many comedians will tell you the worst part of an insulting joke is it not being funny. In a good joke it’s usually obvious to all it’s a joke. Most people would be honored to be insulted by Joan. To make it plain, G made it harder for a lot of people to have freedom of expression through their hair because she put into the media (reinforced) the things Z was trying to combat by wearing the hair to a high profile event. Good should have known better as she has recently faced the problem of people insulting her looks.
Side note: to the person that said Z looked fat in the dress, in what world