Zendaya Says She Didn't Have Choice In Child Stardom - And She WON'T Do That To Her Kids!

Are Zendaya and Tom Holland thinking about kids? Well, maybe not so much yet. But Zendaya is reflecting on her own childhood as a TV star — and thinking about how she’ll do things differently if and when…

During an interview with Vogue published on Tuesday, the two-time Emmy winner opened up about the trials and tribulations of growing up in the spotlight and how if she’s ever to have kids, she’d want them to lead a very different life.

She recalled of her own early years:

“I don’t know how much of a choice I had. I have complicated feelings about kids and fame and being in the public eye, or being a child actor. We’ve seen a lot of cases of it being detrimental.”

Damn, she said a mouthful there! With everything we’ve seen in the wake of Quiet On Set, we know how quickly things can go horribly wrong for kids in that position. And she’s talking about all the problems when everything goes right! She explained:

“I think only now, as an adult, am I starting to go, ‘Oh, okay, wait a minute: I’ve only ever done what I’ve known, and this is all I’ve known.’ I’m almost going through my angsty teenager phase now, because I didn’t really have the time to do it before.”

She continued:

“I felt like I was thrust into a very adult position: I was becoming the breadwinner of my family very early, and there was a lot of role-reversal happening, and just kind of becoming grown, really.”

Oof, that can cause the entire family unit to get turned on its head. And it’s not fair to a child who doesn’t know how to be an adult, much less the provider!

The Challengers star added that she wrestled with the feeling of needing to be “this perfect being, and be everything that everyone needs me to be, and live up to all these expectations” in her life. And that’s something she is NOT keen to pass down to her future children in any way whatsoever. Nor is the anxiety she developed as a result:

“Now, when I have these moments in my career — like, my first time leading a film that’s actually going to be in a theater — I feel like I shrink, and I can’t enjoy all the things that are happening to me. I’m very tense, and I think that I carry that from being a kid and never really having an opportunity to just try s**t.”

She added wistfully:

“And I wish I went to school.”

While the 27-year-old admitted she’s not necessarily in any rush to become a mom, she did reveal that when the time comes, she’ll likely take a step back from the limelight herself! Which makes a lot of sense!! She said:

“I don’t necessarily want my kids to have to deal with this. And what does my future look like? Am I going to be a public-facing person forever?”

Her ideal setup would be to “make things and pop out when I need to pop out, and then have a safe and protected life with my family, and not be worried that if I’m not delivering something all the time, or not giving all the time, that everything’s going to go away.”

That does sound pretty ideal for somebody in her career position! She should really talk to Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes about it… Sadly though, because of the environment she grew up in, it sounds like she has sort of a toxic relationship with fame. Like, she doesn’t always want it, but at the same time she feels the need to maintain the stardom she developed as an early teen:

“I think that’s always been a massive anxiety of mine: this idea that people will just be like, ‘Actually, I know I’ve been with you since you were 14, but I’m over you now because you’re boring.’”

That’s rough. And sadly, all too often the case with child actors.

But hey, if she and Tom aren’t able to live their lives as privately as she envisions, she’ll at least have him by her side to help navigate — because it sounds like she has a LOT of respect for how he handled his come-up, which happened a little later in life than hers. She said:

“I definitely watched his life kind of change in front of him. But he handled it really beautifully.”

We’re sure they’ll make excellent parents one day — but there’s no harm in putting it off for a while until they’ve got life a little more figured out!