Zendaya Says She Knew Tom Holland Was “My Person” and Explains the Wedding Rumor Furor

Zendaya on recognizing the real thing early

Zendaya says she has a pretty simple test for figuring out whether someone is the right fit: she knows early, and she knows by how she feels around them. Conveniently, that is far more practical than waiting for a dramatic montage to provide answers.

While appearing on the New York Times podcast Modern Love with her The Drama co-star Robert Pattinson, Zendaya discussed the film’s central question, which asks what happens if you do not actually know the person you love as well as you think you do. The conversation turned to whether people can tell right away where a relationship is headed.

Pattinson argued that the answer is yes, saying, “I think the second you meet somebody, you know which way the relationship is going to go.” He added that attraction can come with fear at the same time: “You can have the combination of feeling, you can be very attracted to someone, and also there’s some fear or something at the same time. It’s like, oh, and that could be why you’re attracted to them in the first place. But you know that fear will eventually… they will do something to you.”

Zendaya said she agreed “in some ways,” but described her own experience a little differently.

“In my personal experience, I’ve found that people get nervous around people,” she said. “But there’s a certain feeling that I was able to experience when I knew this is my person, because I don’t feel nervous around them. I feel really peaceful, and I feel really calm like, oh, I actually feel more nervous when I’m away from you than when I’m with you.”

The Spider-Man audition that started it all

Zendaya said she and Holland first met during an audition, which, naturally, is one of the least relaxing places on earth.

“We first met in an audition, so I was pretty nervous anyway, but he did make me feel calm,” she recalled, referring to the chemistry read she did with Holland for Spider-Man.

Asked how he managed that, Zendaya kept it straightforward.

“Just by being a nice person, you know? By making me feel comfortable,” she said. “I mean, it’s like having to do a chemistry read for a big movie like that. It’s like, oh, you really want the job, and all these kind of things. And yeah, he was really lovely then.”

Zendaya and Holland have since starred together in three Spider-Man films: Homecoming in 2017, Far From Home in 2019 and No Way Home in 2021. They are also set to return for Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which is slated for release this June.

How much should you know before marriage?

Zendaya’s comments came while promoting The Drama, in which she and Pattinson play a couple on the verge of marriage. Things take a turn when her character reveals something surprising about her past, which made the discussion naturally drift toward the question of how much you should know about a partner before making a lifelong commitment.

“In life, naturally we’re going to grow and we’re going to change. That’s going to happen no matter what,” Zendaya said. “So it’s good to know someone, at least at the core, so that as they grow and as they change, you can be part of that in some way.”

She then drew a line back to her own relationship with Holland, noting that they have had the unusual experience of growing up in public together.

“I feel like I’m biased because I’ve been able to grow up with the person that I love and get to know them through being literally a teenager to now,” she said. “So it’s like, of course we’re going to change and we’re going to grow and life is like whatever, but I still feel like there’s a bond or a connection that you feel like you know someone, at least enough to feel safe with them.”

The wedding rumors, AI photos and the boundaries around privacy

Later in the conversation, Zendaya was asked about the persistent speculation that she and Holland are secretly married. The rumors picked up more steam after her stylist Law Roach said during a red carpet interview that “the wedding has already happened.” Since then, the internet has done what it does best, which is manufacture certainty out of very little. AI-generated wedding photos of the couple also circulated online, though Zendaya confirmed they were not real.

She said she understands why people are interested, but she also wants to keep some parts of her life to herself.

“Well, I just feel like, for me, there is a level of a parasocial investment in my personal relationship, which I understand, and I am aware that I’m a public person, and so is he, and I’m also aware that we’ve grown up in front of people, and we’ve done movies where we fall in love with each other,” she said. “I really do understand that, and I don’t want to dismiss that like ‘stay out of my business’ but in a lot of ways, I also am a very private person, and I try my best to be able to have things for myself and for him as well.”

She added that the goal is not to shut people out completely, but to protect some things from becoming public spectacle.

“We do our best in general to not hide ourselves from the world, but just to, I think, preserve things for ourselves so that we can maintain that joy just within ourselves and our loved ones and our family,” Zendaya said. “So that’s kind of like my broad way of just saying, I hear it, but I also like my own little boundaries of what I like to bring up and talk about, but then also what I’m also willing to share.”