Zendaya and Tom Holland first met in 2016 on the set of Spider-Man: Homecoming, when he was 20 years old and she was 19. Their first public run together turned into a franchise-long thread, moving from the original film to later promotion for their fourth Spider-Man film together.
Spider-Man: Homecoming introduced Holland as Peter Parker balancing high school life with being Spider-Man for the first time, while Zendaya played Michelle Jones-Watson, also known as MJ. That pairing gave the studio a built-in on-screen dynamic to carry across the series, and it is still the backbone of the way the films are discussed now.
Homecoming and the press tour
The pair denied rumours of a romance while promoting Spider-Man: Homecoming, even as the material kept linking them in public. Zendaya posted, “Wait wait... my favourite is when it says we go on vacations together HA! I haven't been on a vacation in years! hbu @TomHolland1996 ???” Holland answered, “Does the press tour count?”
That exchange matters because it shows how the public story formed long before any real-life label did. The film’s promotion made the two inseparable in the eyes of audiences, and the writing around them was already mixing the roles of Peter Parker and MJ with the people playing them.
Far From Home in 2019
In 2019, they were back on the red carpet together for Spider-Man: Far From Home, where Peter goes on a school trip to Europe and teams up with MJ. The film also included their first on-screen kiss, which pushed the pairing from introductory chemistry into a more explicit romantic beat inside the franchise.
Later in the film cycle, that on-screen progression gave the studio something easy to market: the audience had already watched the relationship move from awkward classmate energy to a shared storyline. For a franchise built on repeat appearances, that kind of continuity is worth more than a one-off publicity beat.
Los Angeles in 2021
In summer 2021, Zendaya and Holland were photographed embracing in Los Angeles, then later that year they appeared together for the campaign trail for Spider-Man: No Way Home. In that film, multiverse chaos breaks out after Peter’s identity is revealed, with MJ by his side, so the off-screen and on-screen timelines were running in parallel.
A few months after the premiere of Spider-Man: No Way Home, Holland posted a birthday selfie from the set and wrote, “My MJ, have the happiest of birthdays. Gimme a call when your up xxx.” That line landed because it folded the franchise nickname into a real birthday message, the kind of crossover that only works after years of shared promotion and shared screen time.
The source does not explain when or how the relationship shifted from close friends to a real-life couple, and that gap is the point left hanging after the franchise timeline. What it does show is a decade-long pairing that moved from Spider-Man: Homecoming to Spider-Man: Far From Home and Spider-Man: No Way Home without losing its public center of gravity.
