Law Roach Says Zendaya's Oscar Dreadlocks Led to the Birth of The Crown Act: 'It Created a Global Conversation'

Law Roach is “grateful” for his longtime client and close friend Zendaya.

On November 23 Teen Vogue Summit, the stylist recalled Zendaya’s powerful choice to wear dreadlocks at the 2015 Oscars, when she was 18. At that time, Fashion police co-host Giuliana Rancic sparked backlash for a comment she made that night about the young star looking like she “smells like patchouli oil or weed.”

While not calling her out by name, Roach said Rancic’s “really awful comments” sparked an important discussion.

“That case really changed the way black hair was accepted in schools and the workplace,” he said during the panel discussion. “So although we didn’t intend to make this big statement, because of the events that happened, the Crown Act was actually born out of that incident.”

Created in 2019, the Crown Act (which stands for Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair) provides protection against discrimination based on race-based hairstyles such as braids, braids, curls and knots in the workplace and in schools.

Zendaya at the 87th Academy Awards, February 2015.

Steve Granitz/WireImage

Roach went on to say that while he and Zendaya “didn’t know it was going to happen,” they’re “grateful that it did because it really started a global conversation about what’s appropriate for black people’s hair, especially black women’s hair.”

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Then Zendaya called Rančić’s comments “outrageously offensive”.

“There’s a fine line between what’s funny and what’s disrespectful,” she wrote on Instagram.

“Someone said something about my hair at the Oscars that blew me away,” the Emmy winner added. “Not because I enjoyed the rave reviews of the clothes, but because I was hit with ignorant insults and outright disrespect.”

Zendaya and Law Roach at the 2024 Met Gala.

Cindy Ord/MG24/Getty

She continued: “Saying that an 18-year-old young woman with a locomotive must smell like patchouli oil or ‘weed’ is not only a huge stereotype, it’s outrageously offensive. I don’t usually feel the need to respond to negative things, but certain remarks can’t go unnoticed .”

The TV presenter later apologized on air, telling viewers that “something I said last night crossed the line”. (Zendaya responded to Rancic’s mea culpa in a statement on Twitter, writing that she hoped “others negatively affected by her words will also find it in their hearts to accept her apology.”)

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In an interview with in 2021 W Magazinethe then 24-year-old star reflected on her answer to Rančić.

“That’s how change happens,” she said. “And that got me thinking, ‘How could I always have a lasting impact on what people saw and associated with people of color?'”

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Source: HIS Education