{"id":2243,"date":"2026-03-04T18:59:42","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T18:59:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/westcoastaftershock.com\/wca\/2026\/03\/keke-palmer-disney-nickelodeon-dehumanizing\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T18:59:42","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T18:59:42","slug":"keke-palmer-disney-nickelodeon-dehumanizing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/westcoastaftershock.com\/wca\/2026\/03\/keke-palmer-disney-nickelodeon-dehumanizing\/","title":{"rendered":"Keke Palmer Admits Being A Child Star On Disney And Nickelodeon Felt \u2018Dehumanizing\u2019: \u2018You\u2019re A Product\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Keke Palmer<\/a> is opening up about the realities of being a child star. <\/p>\n

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Source: Aaron J. Thornton \/ Getty<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The actress, host, and singer spoke about her upbringing during a recent interview with Variety<\/a><\/em>, describing her early life in a small Illinois suburb that she described as a low-income \u201cfood desert.\u201d<\/p>\n

Palmer started her acting career early, becoming famous as a child following breakout roles in the 2006 film Akeelah and the Bee and the 2008-11 Nickelodeon sitcom True Jackson, VP.<\/p>\n

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\u201cBeing an artist became a way out for my family,\u201d she told the outlet.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

However, once she found that success and started making money for her family, she noticed the pressure to be \u201ca product\u201d rather than an artist.<\/p>\n

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\u201cBeing a kid entertainer on networks such as Disney and Nickelodeon, there\u2019s no machinery more dehumanizing than that, and I say \u2018dehumanizing\u2019 completely without sadness,\u201d she explained. \u201cIt\u2019s just \u2014 you\u2019re a product.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Keke continued, \u201cOnce you see the difference between poverty and not poverty, you\u2019re not going to go back. Even if you\u2019re tired,\u201d she told the outlet. \u201cAnd once you know you have the capacity, you just keep on taking on s**t.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The multi-hyphenate has had a stable career throughout her life, but Palmer admitted that it wasn\u2019t until recently that she began taking on fewer projects.<\/p>\n

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\u201cAnd I realized in the last couple of years what that meant and what it cost me,\u201d she told Variety<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In 2025, Palmer spoke to People<\/a><\/em> about advice she\u2019d give to her younger self, saying, \u201cI think that my younger self needed to hear that it\u2019s really okay to be angry, and it\u2019s really okay to be sad.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cI think growing up, I felt that I always had to like \u2014 I had deep feelings and I felt like, \u2018Oh I just need to make it easier for everybody,\u2019 because I didn\u2019t want to put it out there,\u201d she said. \u201cBut as I\u2019ve gotten older, I realized somebody just needed to tell her, \u2018You deserve to be angry sometimes. You deserve to be sad. Those are real emotions.’\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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That same year, she opened up about the pressures of being the breadwinner for her family after she was cast in True Jackson VP, which causer her entire family to move to Los Angeles as her career took off.<\/p>\n

During an interview with Shannon Sharpe<\/a>, Palmer said, \u201cMy parents \u2014 at their best \u2014 made $40,000 a year growing up. A year. I was making that a show.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe are family, and everybody sacrificed for me to be where I\u2019m at,\u201d she said. \u201cMy dad gave up his pension\u2026 My mother, she gave up everything so she could travel with me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI would do it again for my family,\u201d Palmer insisted about her early career. \u201cI could be sad \u2014 but why? Look what I gained. I gained so much more than what I sacrificed.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The post Keke Palmer Admits Being A Child Star On Disney And Nickelodeon Felt \u2018Dehumanizing\u2019: \u2018You\u2019re A Product\u2019<\/a> appeared first on Bossip<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Keke Palmer is opening up about the realities of being a child star. Source: Aaron J. Thornton \/ Getty The…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14044,"featured_media":2253,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6],"tags":[10,9],"class_list":["post-2243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-rss","tag-culture","tag-hip-hop"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/westcoastaftershock.com\/wca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/westcoastaftershock.com\/wca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/westcoastaftershock.com\/wca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westcoastaftershock.com\/wca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14044"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westcoastaftershock.com\/wca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/westcoastaftershock.com\/wca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2243\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westcoastaftershock.com\/wca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/westcoastaftershock.com\/wca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westcoastaftershock.com\/wca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westcoastaftershock.com\/wca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}