WhatCelebrity Memoir Book ClubHosts Learned From Keke Palmer's Memoir: 'I'm Not My Work, But I Do My Work'

Mar. 15, 2025

Keke Palmer pictured alongside her ‘Master of Me’ book.Photo:Elyse Jankowski/Billboard/Getty; Dalvin Adams

Elyse Jankowski/Billboard/Getty; Dalvin Adams

Celebrity Memoir Book Clubhosts went deep onKeke Palmer’s new book!

On the Nov. 26 episode of the podcast, Claire Parker and Ashley Hamilton discussedMaster of Me: The Secret to Controlling Your Narrative, which came out Nov. 19.

As the hosts discussed the journey the actress and multimedia star, 31, took through her work, Hamilton recalled how Palmer wrote about the impact of people’s perceptions of others.

“She realizes the power of words and the way someone else’s perception can affect your perception,” the podcast co-host recalled. “I learned to separate my performance from my personal emotions. I’m not my work, but I do my work. This marks the beginning of my process with detaching myself from my own feelings.”

That helped Palmer, who landed her first small part in the 2004 filmBarbershop 2at age 10 and went on to play the starring role inTrue Jackson VP,“navigate feedback with clarity, and grow as an artist.”

Keke Palmer’s book ‘Master of Me’.

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In writingMaster of Me,Palmer told PEOPLEshe learned a lot about herself, too. “My diving into my stuff is less about you saying, ‘Me too,’ and more about you being like, ‘Let me dive intomystuff.’ Because when you do dig, it’s like, ‘Okay, I can move forward with that awareness in a way that’s going to allow me to not hold myself back.”

The podcasters also broke down how Palmer opened up about the challenges that came with being a Black child star in the limelight, noting that “she talks about the triple bind of being a child actor, wanting to be the perfect child, the perfect student, the perfect coworker.”

Keke Palmer at the SiriusXM Studios on November 20, 2024.Cindy Ord/Getty

Cindy Ord/Getty

“She says in addition to wanting to impress everybody and then also support her family, she also has the weight of being Black and the weight of a Black child in the public eye with no room for error or childhood mistakes because everybody’s counting on you,” Parker continued.

“That’s always been the thing with me,“Palmer told PEOPLE, about her journey. “I’m in a mature scenario, having these older experiences in the workplace and with my sense of purpose,” she says, “but then again, I’m just a regular 31-year-old with all of my immaturities.”

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Keke Palmer on ‘The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon’.Todd Williamson/NBC via Getty

Todd Williamson/NBC via Getty

“You tell it to yourself,” she continued. “Be the victor, not the victim of your story. And so a lot of this book is about, ‘I wasn’t forced to support my whole family at 12. I was lucky enough to support my family and, like, break generational curses. And, like, how lucky am I that I had a community who sacrificed so much for me, so what I gave back is finances.’”

source: people.com