Keke Palmer doesn't do anything halfway. The 32-year-old is a two-time Emmy Award-winner, chart-climbing R&B artist, talk-show host, podcast maven, game-show anchor, entrepreneur, memoirist, and getting certified as a Pilates instructor. She's raising a three-year-old son, Leo, solo.
"I know," Palmer says with a mock pout when asked about her latest gig. "Here we go again."
But in a new Rolling Stone interview, the Akeelah and the Bee breakout star is getting real about the price of her relentless ambition. "As I got older, I became more and more clear that I was holding up a lot," Palmer reveals, speaking candidly about the pressure to constantly succeed.
Constant forward momentum isn't actually living. "It reaches a point where you have to redefine what success is for you and give yourself an opportunity to relish in that, instead of always worrying about the next thing," she explains.
Palmer's philosophy on ownership and hustle runs deep—it's literally the subject of her new film I Love Boosters, directed by rapper-filmmaker Boots Riley. She stars as Corvette, a homeless fashion designer who "boosts" designer clothes and resells them with her stylish crew, the Velvet Gang. The indie thriller tackles labor, creativity, and power—issues Palmer is grappling with in real life.
"I'm always trying to work from a point of being an entrepreneur and a creator," she tells Rolling Stone. "A lot of times we're put in a position, especially as talent, that we don't have a voice." Her drive to claim ownership over her career—whether through her digital-content network KeyTV, her memoir Master of Me, or hosting duties on Password and Strahan, Sara & Keke—stems from that hunger for control.
Palmer is asking hard questions now. Fans are responding to her honesty about burnout culture.
