As a rising young star, Keke Palmer landed a role on the hit TV series “Scream Queens” in 2015. However, her time on the show was not without its challenges, as the actress is now revealing in her new memoir, “Master of Me: The Secret to Controlling Your Narrative.”
The LA Times obtained an exclusive excerpt in which Keke Palmer discusses two troubling incidents that transpired during her tenure on the “Scream Queens” set. The first involved a clash with the show’s prolific creator, Ryan Murphy.
Palmer explains that the show’s shooting schedule included a day off. However, when that day came, production contacted her and asked her to come to set. Despite having already made other plans for her day off, Keke chose to honor her original arrangement.
This decision apparently did not sit well with Ryan Murphy, who proceeded to angrily call Palmer. “It was kind of like I was in the dean’s office,” Keke recalls. “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.'”
Murphy went on to brand Keke as “unprofessional” and “ripped” into her over the matter. While Keke apologized, she says that a few days later, one of her coworkers visited her trailer to inform her that Murphy was still unhappy with her.
“I said, ‘Ryan talked to me, and I guess he’s cool, it’s fine,’ and she was like, ‘It’s bad,’ trying to make me scared or something, which was a little irritating,” Keke writes. Prior to this incident, Keke had hoped that she would become one of the actors who consistently works with Ryan Murphy, like Emma Roberts and Sarah Paulson. However, she believes that standing up for herself on this occasion effectively ended any chance of that happening.
“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 explains. “But what I do know is that 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.”
One of Keke’s white coworkers, whom she refers to by the pseudonym “Brenda,” made a racist remark in the second troubling experience she describes in her memoir.
After a fight between “Brenda” and another coworker, Keke suggested they “have fun and respect each other.” However, “Brenda” allegedly responded by saying, “Keke, literally, just don’t. Who do you think you are? Martin fucking Luther King?”
Speaking to the LA Times, Keke noted that she chose not to name the actor because she didn’t want to make the moment about her. “She said such a weighty thing, but I didn’t allow that weight to project on me, because I know who I am,” she said. “I’m not a victim. That’s not my storyline, sweetie. I don’t care what she said. If I allow her words to cripple me, then she will do the same.
Despite these difficult experiences, Keke Palmer seems to have emerged from her time on “Scream Queens” with her sense of self-worth intact. “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,” she says.
November 19th marks the release of Keke’s forthcoming memoir, “Master of Me: The Secret to Controlling Your Narrative.” In it, she promises to get candid about “everything from her struggles with boundaries to unconditional love, forgiveness, and”worthiness”—experiences that now clearly include her time on the set of “Scream Queens.”