Zendaya still thinks about her 2013 stint on “Dancing with the Stars.” The runner-up on Season 16 of the ABC dance competition series told W in a recent interview that she wished she had not taken the show as seriously as she did at the time.
“I took it very seriously, which, in retrospect, I wish I didn’t,” Zendaya said. “I wish I’d enjoyed it a little bit more and just was like, ‘Eh, whatever.’ You know what I mean? But I was stressing myself out. I really went through it on that.”
The “Challengers” star was ultimately defeated by Kellie Pickler and Derek Hough for the honor of the Mirror Ball Trophy. She danced with Valentin Chmerkovskiy and earned second place over NFL wide receiver Jacoby Jones and Karina Smirnoff.
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Zendaya continued, “Listen, I’m still harboring a little animosity about that. I felt that loss. I was only 16 years old, and it was highly stressful. Being on live television every week? It’s so scary.”
Since leaving the show, she has not watched “Dancing with the Stars.”
“I didn’t really watch ‘Dancing with the Stars’ before I was on ‘Dancing with the Stars,’” Zendaya said in an interview last October with EW’s The Awardist podcast, sharing that she does not believe she was necessarily the right target audience for the series. “My grandma loves ‘Dancing with the Stars,’ that’s her bag. But yeah, I also think it was a very stressful experience. I was like, I don’t think I’m gonna be watching this anymore.”