Keke Palmer Claims Ryan Murphy “Ripped” Into Her During ‘Scream Queens’ After Taking A Day Off

Armando Tinoco
·3-min read

Keke Palmer recalled her time on the Scream Queens set and remembered a moment with co-creator Ryan Murphy after taking a day off.

The Emmy award-winning star is set to release a memoir titled Master of Me: The Secret to Controlling Your Narrative, which recalls the incident with Murphy.

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According to the Los Angeles Times, Palmer writes in her memoir she was given the shooting schedule for Scream Queens and arranged to do something on her day off. However, on the day she took off, production told her she had to be on set but when Palmer didn’t oblige to fulfill her prior obligation, things got heated.

Palmer wrote in her memoir that she received a call from Murphy in which he “ripped” into her, with the actor adding, “It was kind of like I was in the dean’s office. He was like, ‘I’ve never seen you behave like this. I can’t believe that you, out of all people, would do something like this.'”

Although Palmer apologized and cleared things up with Murphy, one of her co-stars had a different take on the situation when she returned to the set.

“I said, ‘Ryan talked to me and I guess he’s cool, it’s fine,’ and she was like, ‘It’s bad,’ trying to make me scared or something, which was a little irritating,” Palmer wrote.

Working with Murphy, Palmer had hoped to be one of his frequent collaborators, like Sarah Paulson and Emma Roberts, but due to this incident, she felt like things soured.

“I’m still not sure Ryan cared, or got it, and that’s okay because he was just centering his business, which isn’t a problem to me,” she wrote. “But what I do know is even if he didn’t care, and even if I never work with him again, he knows that I, too, see myself as a business.”

Scream Queens was a comedy horror series co-created by Murphy, Brad Falchuk, and Ian Brennan. The series ran for two seasons, with Palmer playing the role of Zayday Williams throughout the show’s run. Palmer’s co-stars included Emma Roberts, Lea Michele, Skyler Samuels, Abigail Breslin, Nasim Pedrad, Billie Lourd, and Jamie Lee Curtis.

In addition to the incident with Murphy, Palmer also recalled a moment with one of her white co-stars whom she calls “Brenda” in the book and who made a racist remark.

Palmer said Brenda was upset after clashing with a colleague. To try and make things easy, Palmer suggested they “have fun and respect each other,” to which her co-star told her, “Keke, literally, just don’t. Who do you think you are? Martin F—Luther King?”

Brenda is not named because Palmer didn’t want to make a moment out of her and take power out of her words, noting, “It was such a weighted thing that she said, but I didn’t allow that weight to be projected on me, because I know who I am. I’m not no victim. That’s not my storyline, sweetie. I don’t care what her ass said. If I allow what she said to cripple me, then she would.”

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