Actress-singer Keke Palmer is reflecting on life as a child star and the “dehumanising” side of it that often goes unnoticed.
In a latest interview, the 32-year-old actress shared an insight into her growing up years in a small Illinois suburb that she termed a low-income “food desert.”
Palmer started acting as a child artist, and shot to fame following breakout roles in the 2006 film “Akeelah and the Bee” and Nickelodeon sitcom “True Jackson, VP” from 2008 to 2011.
“Being an artist became a way out for my family,” she said.
Despite her rapid ascent to fame, Palmer describes the industry’s machinery as one that often stripped away her individuality in exchange for stardom.
She noted: “Being a kid entertainer on networks such as Disney and Nickelodeon, there’s no machinery more dehumanising than that, and I say ‘dehumanising’ completely without sadness. It’s just—you’re a product.”
“Once you see the difference between poverty and not poverty, you’re not going to go back. Even if you’re tired,” she said. “And once you know you have the capacity, you just keep on taking on s–t.”
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Palmer added that it wasn’t until recently that she began taking on fewer projects: “And I realised in the last couple of years what that meant and what it cost me.”
In an earlier interview, Palmer spoke about the pressures of being the breadwinner for her family after she was cast in “True Jackson, VP”, when her entire close-knit family moved to Los Angeles as her career took off. “My parents, at their best, made $40,000 a year growing up. A year. I was making that a show.”
“We are family, and everybody sacrificed for me to be where I’m at,” she added. “My dad gave up his pension… My mother, she gave up everything so she could travel with me.”
And while Palmer said she had an understanding of the pressure she was under as the family breadwinner, she said: “I would do it again for my family. I could be sad, but why? Look what I gained. I gained so much more than what I sacrificed.”