It Took Keke Palmer Years to Realize How Inappropriate Her Romance With an Adult Was When She Was Just 15
- Keke Palmer rose to fame as a child actor and was one of the highest-paid child stars in Hollywood at one point.
- She revealed she did not realize her relationship with a 20-year-old man until she was much older herself.
- Earl 'Ben J' Benjamin once claimed that he was in a relationship with Palmer when she was 16.
Keke Palmer was 11 when she began acting professionally. By the time, she starred in Nickelodeon’s True Jackson, VP, she had already made her breakthrough and had amassed quite a bit of fame. This, however, did not change the fact that she was a teenager who could have used some kind of guidance from a mentor or a well-wishing adult.
Like most other people, Palmer too had her struggles in her personal life which might not have been very apparent to the world from the outside. Her relationship with a man who was half a decade older than her was not appropriate and it took her years to understand this. She recently opened up about this in a candid interview.
Keke Palmer Did Not Realize the Truth of Her Relationship with an Older Man Until She Was Much Older Herself
Keke Palmer began doing auditions when she was nine and by the time she was 11, she landed her first film role in Barbershop 2: Back in Business. The next year she signed a record deal with Atlantic Records. The 2006 drama film Akeelah and the Bee served as her breakthrough in the industry.
Her role as the lead character in True Jackson, VP made her the fourth highest-paid child TV star. By the early 2010s, she started landing bigger roles. In 2014, she also started her own daytime talk show, Just Keke, which made her one of the youngest talk show hosts in television history. This was the glitz and glamour of her life that the world was seeing.
In a recent interview with PEOPLE, she opened up about her first relationship. Even though she did not reveal who that man was, she admitted that she now realized how problematic the relationship was.
Obviously I shouldn’t have been 15 dating no 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.’ But he knew there was a lot of stuff that there’s no damn way for me to understand at damn 15.
She also stated that she kept the relationship a secret from everyone, including her parent, until she was 20 years old herself. She further admitted that she was not mentally mature enough to understand that the relationship was actually inappropriate.
Who Could Have Been the Man Whom Keke Palmer Began Dating When She Was 15?
Keke Palmer is relatively private about her relationships and likes to keep the details of her personal life to herself for good reason. Her most public relationship so far has been with fitness instructor, Darius Jackson, with whom she shares a son.
Palmer did not reveal the identity of the man whom she was dating at 15, but Earl ‘Ben J’ Benjamin once claimed in an interview with Vlad TV that he dated the actress when he was 19 and she was 16.
That was my girl. I could have made it serious if I was serious about it, you know what I’m saying? I just felt like she was too young.
Benjamin is one half of the rap duo New Boyz, which was quite popular back in the day for hit songs like You’re a Jerk and Tie Me Down. It has to be noted that Palmer has never addressed her alleged relationship with the singer, nor has she confirmed or denied his claims. So, there is no confirmation whether or not he was the one who dated her when she was a teenager.
