Zendaya appears to respond to claim she was denied entry to Rome restaurant because of outfit: ‘Source?’

‘This whole story is a lie,’ Zendaya’s assistant says

Zendaya has seemingly responded to a report that claimed she was denied entry to a restaurant in Rome, Italy because of her outfit.

On Monday, it was reported that the Dune star, 26, and her team had been barred from a Rome restaurant because Zendaya’s outfit did not meet the eatery’s “smart casual” dress code. In photos from the night shared by the DailyMail, the actress could be seen wearing beige cargo pants and a black strapless tube top, which she paired with black loafers.

However, Zendaya’s representative Scott Newman has since denied the report, telling Page Six: “This is completely false.”

Rather, Newman said that, upon their arrival at the restaurant, Zendaya and the group she was with “realised” that they’d already dined at the restaurant during a previous trip, so they “left and went to another place”.

Zendaya also appeared to shut down the report on her Instagram Story on Monday, where she shared a meme of an illustrated person asking: “Source?” to which another illustrated figure responded: “I made it up.”

Zendaya’s assistant Darnell Appling also took to Instagram to deny the claim, which he called a “lie”.

“Well, this is a bald head lie. We never got denied anywhere. We walked into the building, realised we ate there before when we seen the stairs… the same stairs Zendaya slipped on last year and posted about,” he wrote alongside a screenshot of the report. “We all wanted to try a new restaurant and went somewhere else to do so.”

(Zendaya / Instagram)

(Darnell Appling / Instagram)

In the post, Appling then said that the group “never went upstairs” or “interacted with anyone” at the restaurant, contradicting the report, which claimed that Zendaya was seen “looking unimpressed during an interaction with the restaurant staff”.

“We talked amongst ourselves in the downstairs lobby. This whole story is a lie,” Appling continued, before adding: “But y’all be blessed though.”

In Appling’s post, he appeared to be referring to photos of Zendaya tripping on stairs during a visit to Rome in February 2022. In the photos, which the Euphoria star shared on her own Instagram, she could be seen stumbling up the cement steps before being steadied by members of her security team.

“They got me,” Zendaya captioned the photos. “I can’t stop laughing… did they really have to take a video of me tripping?”

The Independent has contacted a representative for Zendaya for comment.