Keke Palmer Opens Up About Sexual Abuse and Shares Inspiring Message

It’s easy to think our favorite celebrities somehow floated seamlessly from normal life into stardom, with absolutely no roadblocks or hardships standing in their way. But often that’s not the case, and Keke Palmer is here to set the record straight.

The 23-year-old Scream Queens star spoke out on Facebook Live this week after reading a passage from her upcoming book, I Don’t Belong to You: Quiet the Noise and Find Your Voice, revealing that she “didn’t come from glitter and glow,” that she suffered through poverty and sexual abuse to get to where she is now.

“At the end of the day, [fame] wasn’t handed to me. At the end of the day, the cards were against me. At the end of the day, I did grow up on Section 8. At the end of the day, I have experienced abuse, sexual abuse. I have experienced turmoil in my family. We have a strong bond, but we’ve been through some s**t,” she said.

But her message was one of hope and overcoming adversity, something she could speak on from personal experience, having been raised in Robbins, Ill., and having grown up poor. She revealed that her father tapped into his pension fund to move his family to Los Angeles, where she quickly found work in commercials and acting and singing gigs.

“The point is not to hide those things,” the star added of her struggles. “Somebody may have gotten abused, somebody may have been put down, somebody mama wasn’t in their life, somebody daddy wasn’t in their life — whatever it could have been.

“The reality is, it doesn’t matter where you’re from, it doesn’t matter who you are, it doesn’t matter what your daddy did to you or what your mama did to you, it matters what you do with yourself. And that is the reality.”

Those are some wise words to live by, and we can’t wait to get our hands on her book when it comes out next month.

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