Apparently, Zendaya staying seated at a fashion show is now a matter of international importance. The actress was front row at Louis Vuitton’s Spring 2027 show at the Louvre on October 6 when France’s First Lady Brigitte Macron approached her. Video shows Zendaya initially chatting with another guest before noticing Macron, smiling, shaking her hand and politely saying hello while remaining seated. Moments earlier, she had also stayed seated while greeting LVMH chief Bernard Arnault.  

Journalist Louis Pisano joked on X that Zendaya should have stood up when the First Lady came over to greet her. The clip quickly went viral, pulling in millions of views and setting off the inevitable debate over “basic manners.”  

Then came the Daily Mail, with a headline declaring that Zendaya had been criticised for lacking “basic manners.” We are struggling to find the scandal.

Brigitte Macron approached Zendaya. Zendaya smiled, greeted her warmly and shook her hand. She did not roll her eyes, ignore her or refuse to engage. She simply did not stand up fast enough for people who apparently believe a fashion show requires diplomatic protocol.

And frankly, Brigitte Macron has bigger things to worry about. More than 266,000 people demonstrated across France on October 6 over school funding, staffing shortages and deteriorating conditions, with clashes between protesters and riot police. Against that backdrop, whether a 30-year-old actress rose from her chair quickly enough to greet the president’s wife feels spectacularly unimportant.

There is also something very familiar about watching the Daily Mail turn the manners of a biracial American woman dating an English man into a character test.

Screenshot of a Daily Mail post criticising Zendaya for remaining seated while greeting Brigitte Macron at the Louis Vuitton show in Paris.

Zendaya has spent years building a reputation as one of Hollywood’s most professional and polished stars. Yet one brief social interaction is suddenly treated like evidence of some character flaw.

Please. If anything, the clip looks like Zendaya was caught off guard in a crowded room and responded politely once she realised who was standing in front of her. That is not a manners crisis. It is a normal human interaction.

The real power move here may simply be that Zendaya did not perform deference on command.

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