Keke Palmer Talks Facing ‘Carnage’ from Breakup & Looking for Her Stedman (Exclusive)

Keke Palmer chatted with “Extra’s” Mona Kosar Abdi about her new album “Just Keke.”

She reflected on being in showbiz from a young age, saying, “Growing up being a child entertainer with Disney and Nickelodeon I think for me was really about setting the stage for what it means to be a product and a performer and a brand and using that as a vehicle to address the parasocial relationship, and then kind of the glitch that is the album where I share a little bit more than I usually would… because of everything that’s happened in my life thus far.”

Keke said of many child stars, “We often just flatten their identity, you know, to that [project] alone when there was always so much more.”

Palmer talked about addressing her public breakup on the album, saying, “Music is a vehicle and it’s an art form that allows you to express yourself in those deep kind of ways.”

Keke shared, “The reliving it wasn’t difficult but addressing the emotions in the carnage… that it left was because I think I brushed it up in the corner and just let it sit and I was like, ‘I moved on from it’… but when I got into the studio and actually had to look at the pile of trash in the corner, I realized how much grief it caused me and how heavy it was.”

She also dished on how motherhood has impacted her work and changed her perspective.

“There’s so much more at stake when it comes to the child as opposed to some of these other things that you used to be worried about, so yeah, I think it just kind of puts things in perspective,” Palmer said.

Plus, Keke said she’s still looking for her Stedman, a reference to Oprah’s longtime partner, Stedman Graham.

Palmer said of what she seeks in a man, “It just has to be somebody that’s cool with you existing as you are,” adding, “I make that joke of Stedman, but it’s like Stedman or [Ciara’s husband] Russell Wilson or the guys that let these women that are big powerhouses just do their thing.”

Keke dished that ultimately she would like to be with someone “cool and chill.”