Keke Palmer

Lauren Keyana Palmer, known professionally as Keke Palmer, was born on August 26, 1993, in Harvey, Illinois, and raised in nearby Robbins, Illinois. Her parents, Sharon and Lawrence Palmer, had both worked as professional actors before taking on other careers; her father became a Catholic deacon and works for a polyurethane company, while her mother teaches high school and works with autistic children. Palmer grew up in a Roman Catholic household and first performed publicly by singing in church and appearing in a stage show at a Chicago tourist destination. At age nine, in 2002, she auditioned for a stage production of The Lion King. The nickname "Keke" originated not as a shortening of her middle name Keyana but from an imaginary friend her older sister Loreal had before Palmer was born.

Palmer entered film in 2004 with roles in Barbershop 2: Back in Business and The Wool Cap. Her breakthrough came in 2006 when she played Akeelah Anderson in Akeelah and the Bee, a role that earned her a Black Reel Award and an NAACP Image Award. That same year she appeared in Madea's Family Reunion, and in 2007 she released her debut studio album So Uncool, which charted at number 86 on the US Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. Additional film appearances during this period included Jump In! (2007), The Longshots (2008), and Shrink (2009).

Television became a central part of Palmer's career when she took on the title role in the Nickelodeon sitcom True Jackson, VP, which ran from 2008 to 2011. She also wrote and performed the theme song for the series and earned $20,000 per episode, making her the fourth-highest-paid child star on television at the time. She subsequently provided the voice of Aisha in Nickelodeon's revival of Winx Club from 2011 to 2014, receiving an NAACP Image Award nomination for that work, and headlined the television film Rags in 2012.

Palmer's transition into more prominent adult roles included portraying Rozonda "Chilli" Thomas in the VH1 biographical film CrazySexyCool: The TLC Story in 2013. The following year she made her Broadway debut in Rodgers + Hammerstein's Cinderella, playing the role of Ella. In September 2014, she became the first African American to star as the title character in that production, performing through the show's closing night on January 4, 2015.

Beyond Broadway, Palmer starred as Zayday Williams in the Fox horror comedy series Scream Queens from 2015 to 2016 and joined the Epix drama series Berlin Station during its second season in 2017. Her film work continued with Animal (2014), Pimp (2018), and Hustlers (2019), in which she played a character described as a lovestruck stripper in the crime drama directed by Lorene Scafaria. She appeared in Jordan Peele's Nope in 2022 and One of Them Days in 2025, with both films drawing critical attention to her performance.

Palmer has also built a substantial career as a television host. She hosted the BET daytime talk show Just Keke in 2014, becoming one of the youngest talk show hosts in television history. In 2019 she joined ABC's Strahan and Sara as a guest co-host before becoming a permanent third co-host, prompting the show's retitling to Strahan, Sara and Keke. She has hosted the game show Password since 2022. In 2021, she launched KeyTV Network, an online entertainment content platform. Her published works include a 2017 memoir, I Don't Belong to You: Quiet the Noise and Find Your Voice, and a 2024 hybrid memoir and self-help book, Master of Me. She has received two Primetime Emmy Awards, nominations for a Daytime Emmy Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award, and was included on Time magazine's list of most influential people in the world in 2019.