Zendaya is setting the record straight on false claims that she was awkwardly turned away from a restaurant in Rome.
A report published on Monday suggested that the Dune star had an “embarrassing moment” in the Italian capital over the weekend when she was apparently denied entry to Terrazza Borromini due to her clothing.
Photographs in the article show Zendaya walking in and out of the eatery dressed in a black, strapless crop top and beige pants. According to the outlet, the casual outfit did not adhere to the restaurant’s “strict dress code,” and she was turned away as a result.
However, despite the claims that she looked “unimpressed” as she was “rejected” by stern restaurant staff, Zendaya and her team are keen to make it clear that this was not the case at all.
Soon after the reports surfaced online, Zendaya’s friend and assistant, Darnell Appling, took to social media to correct the narrative.
“Well this is a bald head lie,” he wrote on his Instagram story alongside a screenshot of the article in question. “We never got denied anywhere.”
Darnell — who was with Zendaya at the time of the mix-up — explained that they were photographed walking away from the restaurant so soon after they arrived because they “walked into the building [and] realized we ate there before.”
Armed with receipts, he also pointed out that the restaurant was apparently the same place that Zendaya memorably slipped on a staircase back in February last year.
“We all wanted to try a new restaurant and went somewhere else to do so,” he explained. “We actually never went upstairs and interacted with anyone. We talked amongst ourselves in the downstairs lobby. This whole story is a lie.”
Around the same time that Darnell posted the real version of events, Zendaya seemingly weighed in on the false reports by sharing a shady cartoon on her Instagram story of a person asking “Source?” with the response, “I made it up.”
A representative for the actor subsequently echoed Darnell’s explanation, telling Page Six in a statement that the reports claiming they were denied entry are “completely false.”
Doubling down, the rep told the outlet that Zendaya and her friends “left and went to another place” to eat after realizing they’d dined there before.
If there’s one thing to be learned from this, it’s that Z does not play when it comes to lies!
