{"id":676261,"date":"2026-09-07T03:47:25","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T03:47:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/676261\/"},"modified":"2026-09-07T03:47:25","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T03:47:25","slug":"zendaya-turns-30-as-highest-grossing-actor-of-2026-with-2-billion-in-box-office-hits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/676261\/","title":{"rendered":"Zendaya Turns 30 as Highest-Grossing Actor of 2026 with $2 Billion in Box Office Hits"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some birthdays sneak up on you. Others come on like a freight train. But the best ones can arrive with both a landmark year and <\/strong>landmark achievements. That’s what just happened to Zendaya.<\/p>\n

The actress and singer turned 30 on September 1, capping a 2026 that saw her named the year’s highest-grossing actor<\/a> on the strength of three major releases: “The Drama<\/strong>,” “The Odyssey<\/strong>” and “Spider-Man: Brand New Day<\/strong>.” Together, those films have earned close to $2 billion globally, and “Dune: Part Three<\/strong>” is still set to arrive in December, meaning her banner year isn’t even finished.<\/p>\n

Zendaya’s first television role came on Disney Channel’s “Shake It Up<\/strong>,” which premiered in 2010, when she was 13. She spent the next several years navigating the network’s teen slate before making the leap that would define her adult career: a supporting role in 2017’s “Spider-Man: Homecoming<\/strong>,” where she met her now-husband, Tom Holland<\/strong>. The two married earlier this year.<\/p>\n

Related: Zendaya Had No Idea She Was Up for Her Nolan Dream Role: But Tom Holland Did<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Her range widened quickly from there. She went on to lead “The Greatest Showman<\/strong>,” “Challengers<\/strong>” and the “Dune<\/strong>” franchise opposite Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet<\/strong>, while also anchoring HBO’s “Euphoria<\/strong>” as Rue Bennett, a role that made her the youngest actor ever to win the Primetime Emmy<\/strong> for Lead Actress in a Drama Series when she took the award in 2021 at age 24.<\/p>\n

Her acting chops even showed in her low-key behavior surrounding her marriage to Holland. Speculation began in January when Zendaya was photographed at the Golden Globes<\/strong> wearing a large ring, then intensified in March when her longtime stylist, Law Roach,<\/strong> told Access Hollywood<\/strong> on a red carpet that the ceremony had already taken place. Holland addressed it directly in a June interview with Esquire<\/strong>, saying family members were all there, and the couple later held a wedding celebration at the Beaverbrook Hotel in Surrey, England, near his hometown of Kingston upon Thames. The pair first met in 2016 during the audition process for “Spider-Man: Homecoming” but did not confirm a relationship publicly until 2021. Their on-screen reunion this year extended beyond Spider-Man: in Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey,” they played Telemachus and Athena, a film that crossed $700 million globally within its first two weeks of release.<\/p>\n

The turn to 30 comes as Zendaya has implied she may need a break. In an interview earlier this year<\/a>, she told Fandango she was considering stepping back from acting for a stretch after such a packed release schedule, joking that she hoped fans wouldn’t “get sick of me.” Her decade in the spotlight has been unusually steady for someone who came up as a child star, a fact she has credited to trusting her own instincts over any outside blueprint for a career.<\/p>\n

Happy 30th, Zendaya! You’ve set quite a standard for those of us on either side of that landmark.<\/p>\n

\ud83c\udfacSIGN UP for Parade’s Daily newsletter to get the latest pop culture news & celebrity interviews delivered right to your inbox<\/strong><\/a>\ud83c\udfac<\/p>\n

This story was originally published by Parade<\/a> on Sep 6, 2026, where it first appeared in the News<\/a> section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Some birthdays sneak up on you. Others come on like a freight train. But the best ones can…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":676262,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[268],"tags":[24248,156568,434,18,117,22663,19,17,286091,154517,7204,18237,18238],"class_list":["post-676261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-24248","tag-156568","tag-celebrities","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-holland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-nolan-dream-role","tag-parade","tag-spider-man","tag-tom-holland","tag-zendaya"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117227714257860582","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=676261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676261\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/676262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=676261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=676261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=676261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}