Keke Palmer, now 32, is looking back on her childhood days as a child star and how it felt "dehumanizing." In a recent interview with Variety, the star opened up about being treated as a "product" by Disney and Nickelodeon.
"Being an artist became a way out for my family," she began. "Being a kid entertainer on networks like Disney and Nickelodeon, there's no machinery more dehumanizing than that. I say 'dehumanizing' completely without sadness. It's just—you're a product."
Keke rose to fame with her breakout roles in the 2006 film Akeelah and the 2008 series True Jackson, VP. She continued, "Once you see the difference between poverty and not poverty, you're not going back. Even if you're tired. And once you know you have the capacity, you just keep on taking on s***."
Keke added, "And I realized in the last couple of years what that meant and what it cost me."
The Disney star revealed a piece of advice she would give her younger self. "I think that my younger self needed to hear that it's really okay to be angry, and it's really okay to be sad," she told People in 2025. "I think growing up, I felt that I always had to like—I had deep feelings and I felt like, 'Oh, I just need to make it easier for everybody,' because I didn't want to put it out there. But as I've gotten older, I realized somebody just needed to tell her, 'You deserve to be angry sometimes. You deserve to be sad. Those are real emotions.'"
Through her words, Keke Palmer is conveying a powerful message about the struggles of being a child star and the importance of acknowledging and expressing one's emotions. Her story serves as a reminder that it's okay to feel angry or sad, even in the face of adversity.
