Keke Palmer reveals a co-star made a racist remark on the set of ‘Scream Queens’
Nope star Keke Palmer is saying, well, “nope” to a person who was racist towards her on the set of Scream Queens. The Ryan Murphy-created show ran for two seasons before being canceled, but it’s probably safe to assume Palmer wouldn’t return if it is ever revived.
Palmer has a new book out, Master of Me: The Secret to Controlling Your Narrative, and in it, she speaks about the racist incident. She doesn’t, however, name the offender, choosing to refer to her by the name “Brenda.”
This person, Palmer wrote, as reported by the Los Angeles Times, was upset about an argument on the set of Scream Queens. Palmer tried to defuse the situation, only for “Brenda” to snap at her, “Keke, literally, just don’t. Who do you think you are? Martin f***ing Luther King?”
The incident clearly still lingers in Palmer’s mind, but she’s determined not to let it drag her down. “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,” she told the Los Angeles 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.”
Needless to say, there’s a lot of speculation out there about who “Brenda” might be, but Palmer isn’t telling. She is, however, spilling all about her relationship with Ryan Murphy. The pair clashed on the set and Murphy did not conduct himself well.
Palmer had a day off from filming Scream Queens to deal with something important, but then she was informed she was needed on set after all. She decided to keep her plans anyway, and Murphy was furious. According to Palmer, he “ripped” into her.
“It was kind of like I was in the dean’s office,” she told the LA Times. “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.'” Palmer said she was sorry and everything seemed okay for the moment, but a co-star (again, not named) disagreed.
“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,” she remembered. After that, Palmer was fairly certain she’d lost her shot at being one of Murphy’s oft-used actresses, like Emma Roberts or Sarah Paulson.
“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 said in her memoir. “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.”
The Los Angeles Times contacted Murphy for comment, but he hasn’t responded as of yet. And “Brenda,” let’s face it, is unlikely to come forward. But at least Palmer got to tell her side of the story.
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