Law Roach on How Zendaya Privately Reacted to His Surprise Retirement News
Law Roach announcing his retirement from styling shocked the world…along with the celebrity he works closest with, Zendaya, who found out at the same time everyone else did, Roach told Emily Ratajkowski on her High Low podcast.
“It was tough for her,” Roach started. “Okay, so Zendaya it’s four of us—it’s Zendaya, her assistant Darnell [Appling], her niece, and myself. We are her core, we are core. And so she calls, she said, ‘Girl, I thought we’d make big decisions together.’”
Roach confirmed that yes, he shared his retirement announcement Instagram post before telling Zendaya about his plans. “Of course she supported me,” he said. “She’s like, do you need me to send you on a vacation? Like, tell me what, tell me what you’re going through. And I talk[ed] to her about, you know, just being unhappy and being unhappy for a really long time and still grieving the death of my nephew [who passed away two years ago when he was just three years old]. So we had that talk. And she was like, whatever you need, whatever you need. But the internet is cruel. It’s really cruel. So people started to blame her for my retirement. And that wasn’t fair to her. And the things they were saying, of course, [suggesting Zendaya may have helped sparked his retirement] isn’t true. So that spilled over to my suffering; she started to suffer too. I didn’t think that was fair. Because she has always protected me in this industry and vice versa.”
He spoke more about his decision to retire, saying he realized he was miserable and didn’t have much more to his life than work. “I just started to realize like, I’m not in relationship, I have never been in a relationship,” he said. “These last eight, nine years, my focus has only been my career blinders on, so I lost a lot of friends…my friends don’t live the same type of lifestyle. So we can’t, I can’t plan a trip with them. They’re like, ‘Oh, we’re gonna go to Miami.’ And I’m like, ‘If I’m not working, I’ll come.’ But usually I’m working. Yeah. And my business is so big that it’s all I do, it’s all I have. And I woke up and I was just like, ‘You know what, I’ve been—and then you start to think about all these experiences—I’ve been miserable and unhappy for a long time. And I’ve been pretending to be perfect.’”
Senior News and Strategy Editor
Alyssa Bailey is the senior news and strategy editor at ELLE.com, where she oversees coverage of celebrities and royals (particularly Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton). She previously held positions at InStyle and Cosmopolitan. When she’s not working, she loves running around Central Park, making people take #ootd pics of her, and exploring New York City.
