All About Zendaya’s 5 Siblings and Her Role as a Devoted Aunt

Zendaya may be one of Hollywood’s most recognizable faces, but when it comes to family, she is simply the baby of the Coleman brood. The Challengers and Dune actress grew up in Oakland, California, with her parents, Claire Stoermer and Kazembe Ajamu Coleman. While Zendaya is the only child Claire and Kazembe share, her father welcomed five children from a previous relationship before Zendaya was born.

This makes Zendaya the youngest of six, with three older sisters, Katianna, Annabella, and Kaylee, and two older brothers, Austin and Julien. Despite the age gap and their privacy preference, the Coleman siblings share a tight bond, and Zendaya has become a devoted aunt to her siblings’ many children.

Here is everything to know about Zendaya’s five older siblings and her special relationship with her nieces and nephews.

The Youngest of Six

Zendaya has always been open about how her large, grounded family shaped her. In a 2015 interview with TIME, she praised her father for his strength and her mother for being a “sheroe,” but credited her older sister with having the biggest impact on her youth.

“I look up to my big sister and realize the influence she’s had on me and making me a better person,” Zendaya told the outlet. “Having such a big, grounded family, I realized as you get older how important that is.”

While Katianna, Annabella, Kaylee, Austin, and Julien keep their private lives out of the spotlight, Zendaya frequently expresses her love for them and their children publicly.

A Proud Aunt to Her “Borrowed Children”

Zendaya’s role as an aunt is central to her life. She has several nieces and nephews whom she adores and often refers to as her “borrowed children.”

While attending the 2024 London premiere of Challengers, where she played a former tennis star and mother, Zendaya revealed that her own family dynamic inspired her performance. “I have many, many little nieces and nephews. So they’re like my borrowed children,” she told PEOPLE. She also joked about the perks of aunt-hood: “I get to have fun and then give them back to their parents.”

Her closest bond is arguably with her niece Ezenia “Zink,” whose father is Julien. The pair are practically peers; in a 2014 Teen Vogue video, they played “Besties Word Association” while getting matching manicures. Zendaya later told Complex, “I think the closest person to me is my niece, who’s 20. She lives in L.A. with my sister who’s out here with her two daughters and husband. So I escape to their house all the time. I’ll call her at any time about anything; we’ll go out to dinner for random stuff. We just chill.”

Red Carpet Dates and Birthday Magic

Zendaya loves including her nieces and nephews in her career milestones. She brought two of her younger nephews as her dates to the Los Angeles premiere of Spider-Man: Homecoming in 2017, and a niece accompanied her to the Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards that same year.

She also goes above and beyond for birthdays. Her sister Katianna (“Kizzi”), a mom of three, received a special surprise in March 2017 when Zendaya treated Kizzi and her nieces to a Harry Potter-themed birthday trip to Universal Studios. “Thank you @UniStudios for giving my little niece the best Harry Potter birthday ever!” Zendaya wrote on Instagram at the time. “Wish I wasn’t sick so I could go, but I got major auntie points for this one.” During her Disney days, Zendaya also frequently babysat Kizzi’s daughters.

Protective and Purposeful

Zendaya is fiercely protective of her siblings’ children, especially regarding social media and public scrutiny. She views herself as a role model for how to navigate the digital world with grace.

“Honestly, I think about my little nieces and my little nephews first,” she told Complex in 2015. “Because one day they’re going to have Twitter and they’re going to have Instagram, and I’m going to be like, ‘This is how you handle it, kids.’”

For Zendaya, family isn’t just a support system it’s her compass. Whether she’s drawing inspiration from her older siblings, spoiling her nieces and nephews, or using her platform to model resilience for the next generation of Colemans, her role as a sister and aunt remains her most cherished title.