Tom Holland and Zendaya’s romantic relationship only went public in 2021, but, as many fans will already know, their story goes back much further than that.
The pair met in 2016 when they were cast as Peter Parker and MJ in Marvel’s reboot of the Spider-Man franchise.
Given that the leads from the previous Spider-Man movies went on to pursue romantic relationships away from the cameras, it didn’t take long for fans to theorize that Tom and Zendaya might become an item too.
And once they started promoting Spider-Man: Homecoming in 2017, it was impossible to deny Tom and Zendaya’s adorable offscreen chemistry.
By July that year, People published reports that they were officially a couple, claiming that “they've been super careful to keep it private and out of the public eye.”
But, just as fans started to get excited about the potential power couple, Tom and Zendaya swiftly laughed off the reports by insisting that they were “best friends” and nothing more.
Obviously, this quote didn’t quite last the test of time, as a few years later, the pair were photographed kissing — and the rest is history.
So, in the two years since TomDaya went public, fans of the duo have enjoyed tracing back their sweet romance, attempting to pick up on the moments that their friendship started turning into something more serious.
Needless to say, the online sleuths have gathered a significant amount of proof to suggest that Zendaya was “down bad” for her costar long before they started officially dating — namely, the countless videos of her laughing hysterically at his semi-funny jokes during press interviews.
find someone who laughs at your terrible jokes the way zendaya does w tom holland pic.twitter.com/3MAvY2hmwI
And now, the most recent piece of evidence comes in the form of a resurfaced tweet from 2017 — the very year that they first brushed off dating rumors.
While the costars were on the road promoting Spider-Man: Homecoming in June 2017, Tom teased Zendaya on Instagram by sharing a photograph of himself on the red carpet looking longingly into the distance.
“Stealing hearts since never @zendaya,” he captioned the photo, which was apparently so funny at the time that Zendaya responded by liking the post and commenting, “I hate you,” with six laughing emojis.
After reacting on Instagram, the Euphoria star also felt the need to share a screenshot of the interaction with her Twitter followers, writing: “I really can't stand him @TomHolland1996” — obviously, with four additional laughing emojis for emphasis.
Now, if you’re reading this and wondering if you’re missing the joke, that’s precisely the point.
Since the tweet resurfaced earlier this week, fans have added it to their bank of evidence to prove that Zendaya was likely crushing on her costar from the very start — because there’s simply no other valid reason to be using that many laughing emojis.
“all those laughing emojis oh she was down BAD,” one person tweeted, alongside a viral screenshot from a press junket where Zendaya is collapsed onto Tom’s shoulder in a fit of laughter.
A ton of others noted that Zendaya — evidently struggling to play it cool — found the interaction so funny that she “liked, commented, screenshotted and tweeted” it all within the space of 2 minutes.
“Her seeing his post so early, liking, commenting, taking a screenshot in less than 2 minutes then and posting here too 😭😭 she was down BAD,” someone wrote.
Her seeing his post so early, liking, commenting, taking a screenshot in less than 2 minutes then and posting here too 😭😭 she was down BAD https://t.co/4sgD2DItKK
