Zendaya handled the insulting backlash to her 2015 Academy Awards dreadlocks with grace, and the iconic hairstyle partly led to The CROWN Act coming into existence.

Law Roach, the actress’s stylist since 2011, spoke on the legendary moment at the Teen Vogue Summit on Saturday, November 23, reflecting on Zendaya’s decision to embrace knotted tresses at the awards ceremony. The How to Build a Fashion Icon began his reflection by acknowledging that the locs were “controversial to so many people,” before referencing former Fashion Police host Giuliana Rancic, who made “really awful comments” about the look. 

Rancic–who would eventually apologize for her comments–caused a stir by saying the locs made Zendaya look like she “smells like patchouli oil or weed,” to which the Challengers star responded on Instagram. “There is a fine line between what is funny and disrespectful,” Zendaya began in a written statement. She continued, “To say that an 18-year-old young woman with locs must smell of patchouli oil or ‘weed’ is not only a large stereotype but is outrageously offensive.”

“She was literally a kid,” added Roach at the Teen Vogue Summit. “Fashion has the ability to make political statements. And I think that we should use fashion to express ourselves and what we agree with and what we disagree with and what's going on in politics because it's our voices that make a difference.”

Roach continued, “But with that one instance, that went on to change the way Black people's hair was accepted in schools and a workplace. So although we did not set out to make this big statement, because of the events that happened, The Crown Act was actually birthed from that incident.”

He concluded, “So again, just being a part of that moment, because she wore those dreads to pay homage to her dad, and I had dreads at the time, and it was something that we were just doing and I didn’t know it would happen that way. But we’re grateful that it did because it really created a global conversation of what's appropriate for Black people's hair, especially Black women.”

The CROWN Act, launched in 2019, stands for ‘Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair,’ guarantees that Black hairstyles like braids, locs, twists, and knots will not be discriminated against on the job or in educational institutions. In March 2022, the U.S. House of Representatives federally passed the CROWN Act to ban hair-related discrimination in a 235-189 vote.