Why Zendaya keeps teasing rumor about Tom Holland ‘marriage’

Is she or isn’t she?

There’s a reason why Zendaya hasn’t yet confirmed if she and Tom Holland are actually married: She has a wedding film to promote.

The actress has been teasing fans and masterfully manipulating the media with her coy interviews and bridal-white wardrobe — even going so far as to wear a wedding dress on the red carpet — for premieres and appearances tied to “The Drama.” In the movie, out April 3, Zendaya and Robert Pattinson play an engaged couple whose relationship takes a sharp turn one week before their nuptials.

Is it any coincidence that it was Law Roach, the actress’s outspoken stylist and the man coordinating her wardrobe, who first told the press that Zendaya and Holland’s wedding had already happened?

“Before every movie, we sit down and brainstorm and talk about what we’re going to do. For her movies, ever since ‘The Greatest Showman,’ we’ve always done method dressing,” Roach told Page Six this week — nodding to the tennis-inspired outfits the actress wore while promoting “Challengers” in 2024 and her sci-fi futuristic dressing for the “Dune” movies.

Roach set off a publicity storm after the 2026 SAG Actor Awards when, asked by “Access Hollywood” about Zendaya and Holland’s engagement, he said: “The wedding has already happened. You missed it.”

Since then, we’ve had Holland’s mom possibly implying it was a joke (“The laugh,” Claire Stoermer cryptically wrote when re-posting Roach’s “Access” interview), Roach doubling down (telling “Extra” at the Oscars that “I said what I said“), and Zendaya herself playing coy.

Asked by host Marsai Martin to “just give a little nod or signal” if she should send a wedding gift, the 29-year-old actress flashed her hands to reveal bands on both ring fingers.

During a “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” appearance on March 16, she revealed that “many people” in her life were mad about not being invited to the wedding after AI-generated photos online seemingly showed her and Holland getting hitched.

And while Holland was not spotted with Zendaya at the Oscars on March 15, where she and Pattinson presented the Best Director award to Paul Thomas Anderson (“One Battle After Another”), her massive engagement diamond was accompanied by a gold band that sure looked like a wedding ring.

One celebrity branding expert called it all calculated “catnip.”

“They’re genuflecting back to the tricks of the trade of the [old Hollywood] studio days,” Mark Borkowski said of Zendaya and her team, including Roach. “It’s remaining in control … If you’re really realistic, you know your moment is transient. In modern terms, it’s what we all try to do with publicity: bewitch the algorithm.

“What she’s done recently is found a way of churning a narrative into cultural gossip without ever looking like it’s marketing or a hard sell,” Borkowski told Page Six. “She’s got this new product and she leans into the rumors around Tom Holland — but never declares it.”

Indeed, even her stylist admits the tease is equal parts something old and something new. 

Roach, who said, “I’m the only stylist [Zendaya’s] ever had. I’ve been working with her since she was 14” — told Page Six the public that style spectacle is a key way to gain public attention.

“We’ve always based the looks on the emotion of the film,” he said, admitting they’re not the first to do what’s been called method dressing. “Someone named it when Margot Robbie did it for ‘Barbie’ — we didn’t invent it by no means. [But] we have bought it to a place where pop culture and the people expect it from us,” Roach said.

“We had a brainstorming meeting [for ‘The Drama’] … She literally said ‘something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue,” he added of Zendaya. “Everything else — the bridal whites — it is just that.”

The actress kicked off her press tour in a “borrowed” look: a white Eugene Alexander dress previously worn by Whitney Houston for a 1987 photo shoot and Sarah Jessica Parker in the opening scene of the “Sex and the City” movie in 2008.

She donned her “something blue” for the Kimmel appearance, combining a sheer floral McQueen gown with baby blue heels.

And, at the Los Angeles premiere of A24’s “The Drama” Tuesday, Zendaya dipped into her own past for “something old” look, revisiting a Vivienne Westwood dress she first wore to the Oscars in 2015. (The same year that red-carpet correspondent Giuliana Rancic controversially said the actress’s dreadlocks made her look like “she smells like patchouli oil and weed” — and prompting Zendaya to later call the comment “ignorant.”)

“Technically, it was a wedding gown,” Roach said of the off-the-shoulder stunner. “I had that dress in my archive.”

Borkowski praised the choice: “That Vivienne Westwood gown! She was wearing her engagement ring and a wedding band. It was all oxygen about the idea that she’s married.”

Reps for Holland and Zendaya have not confirmed or denied whether the pair are legally married.

But Holland appeared Wednesday atop the Empire State Building, lighting it up in red and blue to celebrate the trailer drop for “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” — sans any wedding ring.

Borkowski said it’s all playful.

“Tom Holland, his dad is a comedian — they’re knowing people. They’re super smart. They know the price of fame,” the branding expert said.

“There’s a huge amount of personal branding built on control. The Hollywood and entertainment scene out there is very, very, very controlled in a sense of what she [Zendaya] deploys,” he added.

“What she’s done is, she’s creating atmosphere — it’s rumors, its wardrobe  choices, its digital breadcrumbs it makes us want to engage with that story,” Borkowski added, calling viral moments when Zendaya engages in wedding rumors “episodic.”

“When you leave everyone speculating it creates noise and heat” for a new project,” he said. “It’s not an accident — it’s clever choreography.”

And, cleverly, one the public doesn’t necessarily view as a “publicity stunt or publicity mechanic,” Borkowski explained. “Everything she’s done has been for marketing ‘The Drama.’”

Meanwhile, Roach is leaving fans on a bit of a cliffhanger — telling Page Six that, while we’ve already seen the something old, something borrowed and something blue looks on Zendaya, “We haven’t seen new.”

The New York City premiere of the movie is scheduled for April 2. The real drama: Will that be the day Zendaya finally unveils her new husband?