Keke Palmer Says QUITTING Hollywood is “Around the Corner”
Keke Palmer has a bit of her own horror story about working with Ryan Murphy.
The 31-year-old recalled an alleged incident she had with the producer while working on his series Scream Queens. In her latest book Master of Me: The Secret to Controlling Your Narrative, Keke reflected on a time she had a schedule conflict that spiraled into a larger issue.
Keke writes, per the Los Angeles Times, that she made plans to honor another project on her day off from shooting Scream Queens. However, when production told her she would be needed on set and Keke chose to honor that project, she says Ryan “ripped” into her and called her “unprofessional.”
“It was kind of like I was in the dean’s office,” she said of the moment in an interview with the Los Angeles Times published on Nov. 11. “He was like, ‘I’ve never seen you behave like this. I can’t believe that you, out of all people, would do something like this.’”
Keke—who is the mother of Leodis, 20 months—remembered having a conversation with Ryan and believing everything was fine, until she spoke to an unnamed co-star who told her otherwise.
The Baby, This Is Keke Palmer host said that prior to the incident, she believed she would be one of Ryan’s go-to actors like Emma Roberts and Sarah Paulson. But that dream quickly faded.
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“I’m still not sure Ryan cared, or got it, and that’s okay because he was just centering his business, which isn’t a problem to me,” she writes in the book. “But what I do know is even if he didn’t care, and even if I never work with him again, he knows that I, too, see myself as a business.”
E! News has reached out to Ryan’s reps for comment, but has not heard back.
Keke’s only other hiccup on the set of Scream Queens—which she appeared on from 2015-2016—wasn’t with Ryan. According to her book, she claims there was an incident with a white co-star (who she calls Brenda) who made what she says is a racist remark.
Keke writes that while trying to diffuse a situation between Brenda and another co-star, the actress told her “Keke, literally, just don’t. Who do you think you are? Martin F— Luther King?”
But despite the significance of the remark, the True Jackson VP alum said that she didn’t allow the moment to shape her.
“It was such a weighted thing that she said, but I didn’t allow that weight to be projected on me, because I know who I am,” Keke told the LA Times. “I’m not no victim. That’s not my storyline, sweetie. I don’t care what her ass said. If I allow what she said to cripple me, then she would.”
Ahead of the release of her book, Keke opened up about her plans to wind down her time in Hollywood.
"I think the timer has started," Keke told Teen Vogue in an interview published Jan. 30. "I know that it's around the corner. I don't know when exactly, but it's around the corner."
Keke added that when she calls it quits in entertainment, she wants the business to be better than it was when she came in as a child star.
"The main thing I want those legacies to be is [a call] to use your power for good, to use what you have to create spaces and systems for other people to thrive," the Hustlers star said. "I just don't believe in holding everything.”
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