Keke Palmer Shuts Down Online Career Comparisons to Zendaya: 'Been a Leading Lady Since I Was 11'

Mar. 15, 2025

Photo: GP Images/Getty; Matt Petit/A.M.P.A.S. via Getty

Keke Palmeris a talent all her own.

On Sunday, theNopeactress addressed conversations on Twitter that were drawing comparisons between her career and that ofZendaya.

Though Palmer did not reply to any specific tweet,one such post read: “I’d like someone to do a deep-drive on the similarities and differences between Keke Palmer and Zendaya’s careers. This may be one of the clearest examples of how colorism plays out in Hollywood.”

“They were both child-stars, but their mainstream popularity is very different,” the Saturday tweet added. (Zendaya, 25, started on the Disney Channel and now headlinesEuphoria, for which she won an Emmy, and is part of theSpider-Manmovies.)

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The actress went on to say, “I’vebeen a leading lady since I was 11years old.”

“I have over 100+ credits, and currently starring in an original screenplay that’s the number one film at the box office #NOPE,” Palmer said. “I’ve had a blessed career thus far, I couldn’t ask for more but God continues to surprise me.”

Palmer, this year, marks 20 years in the industry. She had her big breakout starring roles in the 2006 filmAkeelah and the Beeand on Nickelodeon’sTrue Jackson, VP, which premiered in 2008. She has since gone on to star on television series likeScream Queens, Masters of SexandBerlin Station, and co-hostedGood Morning America’sStrahan, Sara & Kekefrom 2019 to 2020.

In 2022 alone, Palmer starred in thrillersAliceand the recently releasedNope, as well as voiced the character of Izzy Hawthorne inLightyear.

Palmerspoke with PEOPLE back in March, when she recalled experiencing “what we’ve come to know now as microaggressions” as a kid.

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“It’s, ‘Oh, the teacher pinched me, but she ain’t never put her hands on the other kids.’ Or it’s, ‘Oh, somebody said somebody lied in class, and it wasn’t me but somehow I got blamed,’ " she explained. “Itwas the constant bullyingthat I experienced where it just didn’t match up.”

Because at home, “I never felt bad about being Black, so that’s why I did not understand really what most of those things were coming from,” continued Palmer who, aside from her acting career, authored the bookI Don’t Belong to Youand founded the Saving Our Cinderellas arm of theSaving Our Daughtersnonprofit. “[My parents] gave me such a great sense of pride about who I am.”

Ultimately, Palmer decided to block out the negativity. “The only answer I have is to go where the love is, to focus on the people that support you, to focus on the people that do see you,” she said. “Don’t beg theOscarsto nominate you if theNAACP Awardsis already acknowledging you.”

“Go where people respect and feel that you are deserving of love and just don’t pay attention to the rest. I’m not going to change everybody’s mind,” Palmer advised. “Everybody’s not going to like me, so I just have to focus on the ones that do.”

source: people.com