As Zendaya hints at Tom Holland engagement, why do we care about celebrity weddings?

Zendaya made an appearance on the red carpet at the 82nd Golden Globes looking typically incredible. However, it wasn't her burnt orange strapless dress that got people talking, but the giant diamond she wore on her left ring finger.

Of course it didn't take long for social media to wonder if this means she may be engaged to boyfriend, fellow actor, Tom Holland.

"Zendaya with a diamond ring on THAT finger omg…," one user wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

"Finding out that zendaya has a tiny 't' tattoo and an engagement ring was not on my golden globes bingo card," another user added.

"Am i tripping or is zendaya wearing an engagement ring?" yet another user asked.

Others speculated that this had to be a pointed move by the Euphoria actor. "I’ve checked previous pictures of her on red carpets and she’s never warn a ring on her wedding finger until now," one user wrote.

"I'm sorry Zendaya is too PR trained to wear a ring like that on THAT specific finger if it wasn’t a legit engagement ring," insisted another.

Later during the awards it appeared to some viewers that she was showing the ring to another attendee, prompting further rumours. And the fact she wasn't trying to hide her left hand, also made people suspect she could be soft-launching the fact she was betrothed.

So is the Dune actor engaged to her British beau? As the Golden Globes have only just wrapped, there has been no official comment about the ring from Zendaya, which isn't actually a surprise.

Zendaya has been romantically linked to Holland since July 2021, but the couple have largely chosen to keep their relationship out of the spotlight, however, she has made a few comments on the couple's private life together.

"Parts of my life, I accept, are going to be public,” Zendaya told Elle US in 2023. "I can’t not be a person and live my life and love the person I love. But also, I do have control over what I choose to share. It’s about protecting the peace and letting things be your own but also not being afraid to exist. You can’t hide. That’s not fun, either. I am navigating it more than ever now."

Psychology of our interest in celebrity engagements

Of course, it's entirely possible that at last night's Golden Globes, Zendaya was simply showcasing jewellery from a luxury brand, but the interest the ring-wearing has cultivated serves to illustrate how invested we are in celebrity nuptials.

Over the Christmas period fans were speculating about Dua Lipa's relationship status with her actor boyfriend Callum Turner after she shared a string of festive photographs with what appeared to be a diamond sparkler on her ring finger.

And towards the end of last year some Swifties were excited about the potential prospect of an engagement between Taylor Swift and her NFL star boyfriend Travis Kelce, after pictures of the Lover singer's ring finger appearing blurred as she celebrated her 35th birthday, prompting one fan to speculate she was engaged.

The 'are they, aren't they getting hitched?' is a regular rumour many A-list couples face, but what is it about celebrity nuptials that gets us so excited?

Psychologist Lee Chambers says celebrity engagements (or the thought of them) can really resonate with us because they bring together our love of storytelling with the appreciation for the glamorous.

This feeling, as if a celebrity is a close friend, is known as a parasocial relationship and describes a one-sided connection between an individual and a well-known personality, in which a person develops a strong sense of familiarity with someone they don’t actually know.

And this partly explains our interest in learning of a celebrity engagement. "We form parasocial bonds with celebrities, projecting our hopes onto their lives, making their milestones feel personal, like a close friend bringing good news," Chambers explains.

As humans we have a desire for connection, so even if this connection is primarily imagined, or parasocial, it has a role to play in why we care about the finer details of celebrity relationships, including potential news of nuptials.

Of course, how invested we are can depend on the celebrities themselves. When it comes to Zendaya and Holland fans have pretty much been rooting for them since 2016, when they first revealed their unmissable chemistry while filming Spider-Man: Homecoming.

After appearing to debut their romance in 2021, the duo's colleagues-to-friends-to-lovers story has continued to captivate fans globally. It follows, therefore, that a potential engagement would kick-start a huge spike in interest in the next chapter of the Zendaya/Holland love story.

"Engagements are symbolic of love, commitment, and positive futures, offering an element of escapism and shared joy in a world that feels increasingly uncertain and volatile," Chambers adds. "And the loop doesn’t close, creating curiosity for what the wedding itself will be like."

While we may have to wait for official confirmation of an engagement, no doubt any future nuptials "Tomdaya" may or may not partake in will largely be kept out of the spotlight. But that doesn't mean we have to stop imagining what the wedding might look like, what Zendaya's dress will be like, where they might tie the knot, who might be on the guest list.

Obsessed? Us?

Read more about the Golden Globe Awards:

• Best-dressed stars at the Golden Globes 2025 (Yahoo Life UK, 4-min read)

• Emma Stone debuts brunette pixie cut at Golden Globes 2025 (Yahoo Life UK, 5-min read)

• Golden Globes: Lily James, Salma Hayek and Jessica Chastain wear cult £27 lipstick (Yahoo Life UK, 3-min read)