26 February 2015
Newsdesk
Zendaya has forgiven Giuliana Rancic for the comments she made about her dreadlocks at the Oscars.
The 18-year-old singer and actress attended the Academy Awards in an off the shoulder gown and her hair in dreads. But after the Fashion Police co-host made some unsavoury comments, Zendaya felt the need to speak out about her behaviour, saying there was a “fine line” between funny and disrespectful. Giuliana then apologised for her remarks and on Wednesday, the beauty once again took to her Instagram account to accept them.
“Giuliana, I appreciate your apology and I’m glad it was a learning experience for you and for the network,” she wrote. “I hope that others negatively affected by her words can also find it in their hearts to accept her apology as well.”
The E! Presenter was widely criticised for saying that Zendaya looked like she would smell of “weed”. The former Disney Channel star feels that the comments were an example of prejudice, and that people shouldn’t be afraid to stand up and address the problem.
“Studies have shown that even though we try to act without prejudice, sometimes it’s just hidden inside us due to our past or surrounding. That hidden prejudice is often influential in our actions,” she continued. “It’s our job to spot these issues within others and ourselves and destroy them before they become hurtful. I have so many people looking up to me, that I couldn’t be scared, wait it out, nor could I just stand up for me; I had to do it for WE.”
In the post, the star added that just because a person can have pain inflicted on them, it doesn’t give them the right to impart the same feelings onto another human being. And while she initially wanted to lash at Giuliana’s comments, Zendaya showed she was wise beyond her years in taking her time to reply.
“As hard as it was to stop MYSELF from being ignorant and from posting the first mean words that came to my mind because I was hurt, I had to think about the bigger picture,” she explained. “Instead, I sat for two hours on my phone, doing my research and formulating an educated response."
