Keke Palmer ‘traumatized’ by ex-manager who said her mother would ‘die’ if she didn’t lose weight

Keke Palmer revealed that a former manager convinced her that her mother would die if she didn’t lose weight.

The beloved actress, 31, reflected on her early career during a recent interview with The cutand admitted that it was difficult to be the breadwinner of her family at such a young age.

“There was so much pressure to do it for my community, for my parents, for my siblings, for their victims,” ​​she said in the profile published Tuesday.

“They didn’t say it, but it was the reality. Because I’m who we all came here for.”

When Palmer was 12, one of her managers took advantage of her stress and vulnerability, telling her that her mother’s health would decline if she didn’t stay thin and continue to perform.

“It really traumatized me and stressed me out,” she shared. “It made me think about her dying and think about things like medical bills. It was just too much.”

Palmer’s mother, Sharon, has been her manager ever since.

The “No” star is the daughter of two amateur actors and grew up in a working-class home in the Chicago suburbs.

She made her screen debut in “Barbershop 2: Back in Business” when she was 10 years old. She struck gold less than two years later when she landed the lead role in “Akeelah and the Bee.”

While her parents pushed her career forward, Palmer said they “were very careful about the roles (she) played as a young black kid.”

A few years later, she reached full child star status after being cast as the title character in Nickelodeon’s “True Jackson, VP.”

The actress said her role as the 15-year-old director struck a chord.

“She climbed the corporate ladder and worked a grown-up job as a child. I felt the same way,” she told the newspaper.

“She made it happen for herself independently in the world,” Palmer continued. “Growing up with that character — it bled into how I would show up, how I would handle life.”

However, the “Scream Queens” star ran into another ugly side of Hollywood stardom while filming the sitcom.

In October 2024, Palmer told People that she was in an “inappropriate” relationship with an older man, 15 years old.

“I was trying to balance being really young but also feeling pretty mature,” the “Password” host explained.

“Obviously, I shouldn’t have been 15 and dating a 20-year-old, but in my mind it was like, ‘I got a full-time job… Can’t nobody understand me but a grown man.’

Although Palmer did not realize their relationship was inappropriate at the time, she said he should have.

“I wasn’t mentally able to process and understand things that would have made that relationship appropriate,” she said.

“But he knew there were a lot of things I couldn’t understand when I was 15, she added.

The “One of Them Days” actress kept their relationship under wraps for five years before ending things at 20.

In her memoir, “Master of Me: The Secret to Controlling Your Narrative,” the actress said the “power dynamic” between her and the older man “damaged” her in more ways than one.