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Zendaya Demonstrates Her Red Carpet Walk vs Her "Dad" Walk

"We call it the 'Coleman Trudge,'" revealed the Challengers actress.

By Christopher Rudolph

Zendaya knows how to walk the red carpet like the best of them. Her show-stopping looks are a highlight of any event she attends, and we're sure she'll be dressed in fierce fashion as a 2024 Met Gala Co-Chair.

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While the Challengers star is used to sashaying toward a step and repeat, and she'll surely be turning heads as she ascends up the Metropolitan Museum of Art staircase, her carpet catwalk is not her natural strut.

Zendaya's signature walk came up during a December 2017 appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. She shared that though she's one of the world's biggest celebrities, she doesn't feel like a movie star until she starts walking like one.

Jimmy Fallon prefaced her revelation by sharing that Zendaya told him this backstage. "And I go, 'What are you talking about?' You just came out tonight. That was perfect. That's how a movie star walks out," he said.

RELATED: Austin Butler and Zendaya Met as Disney Kids and Jimmy Fallon Has Proof

Zendaya on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon Episode 787

Zendaya's red carpet walk is way different than her "Coleman Trudge" 

"See, I know how to walk. It's like a different persona  that comes on when I'm on stage," Zendaya explained. "I know how to walk in heels, I know how to do that, but in my day-to-day life, me and my dad walk the same. Which is not necessarily a great thing."

And what is Zendaya's "dad walk"?

"We call it the 'Coleman Trudge.' I can't really do it in heels because it's not as ugly, but my day to day walk is more like this..."

The Challengers actress stood up and proceeded to demonstrate the difference between her daily walk and her glamorous gait that she saves for red carpets.

"You're just kind of trudging through," said Fallon. "See, now I get it. I understand," he laughed, as Zendaya sat back down after the audience applauded her regal strut. 

The "Coleman Trudge" may not work at a movie premiere, but it probably came in handy while practicing the Dune sand walk.

Emmys Red Carpet Zendaya

Zendaya is serving as Co-Chair of the 2024 Met Gala, with Bad Bunny, Chris Hemsworth, Jennifer Lopez, and of course Anna Wintour. The star-studded benefit takes place on Monday, May 6 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

This year's Met Gala dress code is "The Garden of Time," and it will celebrate the opening of the Costume Institute's spring exhibit, “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion.”

RELATED: Kelly Clarkson Makes Fun of Herself After Getting Tongue-Tied Talking to Zendaya

Just don't ask Zendaya what being a co-chair actually entails, because she "doesn't really know," as she recently revealed on The Kelly Clarkson Show.

"I've never actually done it before," she told Kelly Clarkson. "I'll let you know after."