Law Roach made himself vulnerable this week over his decision to retire, and no, it has nothing to do with getting a second-row seat at the Louis Vuitton fashion show.
In Monday’s episode of Emily Ratajkowski’s podcast “High Low,” the stylist behind Zendaya’s most iconic red carpet moments, Hunter Schafer’s feather bandeau, and all of Lindsay Lohan’s recently elevated Lohan-aissance looks , spoke about his recent decision to retire.
Roach revealed that when he dropped the news that he was retiring, which he did in a now-deleted Instagram post, Zendaya reached out to him and offered to help him out.
“He called and said, ‘Girl, I thought we made some big decisions together.'” cockroach said. “Of course, she supported me. She says, ‘Do you need me to send you on vacation? Tell me what you’re going through,’ and I talked to him about being unhappy and being unhappy for a long time and still grieving my nephew’s death. So, we had that conversation, and she was like, ‘Whatever you need, whatever you need.’”
Roach’s 3-year-old nephew died in November 2021 when he fell out of a window on the 17th floor of a Chicago apartment building. The stylist said at the time, in a since-deleted Instagram post, that it was the hardest thing he’d ever had to deal with.
“I think that’s when the change started to happen for me,” Roach said on the podcast. “Because I literally only got to see my nephew four times in his three years because of work.”
The guilt of not seeing his nephew enough due to his busy work schedule ate up the stylist from the inside out, he said, and he couldn’t help but think about how he hadn’t been able to hug him enough and didn’t get the chance. to kiss him or tell him that he loves him enough.
“I had never been depressed in my life, and I went through a very, very bad bout of depression,” Roach said.
The stylist then explained that Zendaya had nothing to do with her sudden retirement, “but the internet is cruel,” saying that after announcing her retirement, short videos went viral and were scrutinized online.
“People started blaming her for my retirement and that wasn’t fair to her,” she said. “The things they said, of course, are not true. So, she extended to my suffering. She also began to suffer. And I didn’t think that was fair because she has always protected me in this industry and vice versa.”
Law Roach says he’s ready to change his priorities.
(Marcus Yam/Los Angeles Times)
Roach clarified an interaction between him and Zendaya captured in the days following his retirement announcement, in which social media users speculated that he was upset with her at a Louis Vuitton fashion show during Paris Fashion Week. . The “Euphoria” star recently became an ambassador for Louis Vuitton.
In the clipZendaya takes the last empty seat in the front row next to Emma Stone, then motions Roach to an empty seat behind her in the second row.
He clarified that the two were running late because they got stuck behind a traffic accident, and when they got to the fashion show, it was chaos.
“They’ll just seat you wherever they can find you a seat, but I had a seat, and the seat that she pointed to, that was Darnell’s, who’s her assistant, that was her seat,” she said. “We were both standing there, and she said, ‘Darnell, that’s your seat.’ And then they came to me and said, ‘Law, you have to sit down. I was like, ‘Okay, you have to tell me where I’m sitting.’
Roach said that while working in this industry, she always tried to remember that her clients were not her friends, but when it came to Zendaya, it was different. “She is my sister,” he said. “We grew up together.”
Roach began styling the Emmy-winning actor’s hair even before he officially called himself a professional stylist, two years before he moved to Los Angeles in 2014.
At the start of Zendaya’s career, her hairstylist and dad were her entire team, according to Roach, who also served as her publicist. Her father worked as her manager.
“At the beginning of our relationship, we made a promise to each other that we would do everything we could to lift each other up,” Roach said. “It’s a lot of fun because we call ourselves ‘Big ideas, small details.’ So, I’m the big idea. I kind of live in this fantasy world, and I bring these things to her, and she puts them together, and then my job is to create this narrative and tell her what she is and who this girl is as she walks across the carpet. And she just becomes that.”
Roach said he’s ready to switch gears. And while dating hasn’t been a feasible option for him before, he’s opening his “heart to the possibility.”
More than that, she’s shifting her priorities to family and spending time with her three nieces any chance she gets.
