Keke Palmer recalls racism on Scream Queens set, clash with Ryan Murphy

It appears all the murders on Scream Queens could not rival the terrors Keke Palmer experienced on the set of the Fox series.

Keke Palmer; Ryan Murphy.

Jerritt Clark/Getty; Taylor Hill/FilmMagic

Palmer, who played Zayday Williams on the horror comedy from Ryan Murphy, opens up about her time on the show in her forthcoming memoir Master of Me: The Secret to Controlling Your Narrative (out Nov. 19), claiming that an unnamed white costar — whom she refers to as “Brenda” — once made a racist remark to her on set.

The actress, host, and singer reflects on that moment and more in a recent conversation with the Los Angeles Times ahead of the release of her memoir. The remark came after Palmer tried to calm down “Brenda,” who was clashing with another worker, by proposing that everyone “have fun and respect each other.” “Brenda” said in response: “Keke, literally, just don’t. Who do you think you are? Martin f—ing Luther King?”

Palmer also alleges that Murphy, who co-created the series with frequent collaborators Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan, once “ripped” into her and called her unprofessional following a scheduling conflict. According to Palmer, she had been given her filming schedule and arranged to fulfill another work obligation on her day off. When production informed her that she would be needed on set after all, Palmer kept her prior obligation — and claims it led to an angry phone call with Murphy.

“It was kind of like I was in the dean’s office,” she said. “He was like, ‘I’ve never seen you behave like this. I can’t believe that you, out of all people, would do something like this.’”

Palmer said she apologized and thought the situation had defused — but a few days later, a costar indicated otherwise. “I said, ‘Ryan talked to me and I guess he’s cool, it’s fine,’ and she was like, ‘It’s bad,’ trying to make me scared or something, which was a little irritating,” recalled Palmer.

The Nope star believes the incident squashed the possibility to become a frequent Murphy collaborator. (The TV creator has a penchant for casting the same rotation of actresses in his projects.) “I’m still not sure Ryan cared, or got it, and that’s okay because he was just centering his business, which isn’t a problem to me,” Palmer writes in her memoir, per the L.A. Times. “But what I do know is even if he didn’t care, and even if I never work with him again, he knows that I, too, see myself as a business.”

A rep for Murphy didn’t immediately respond to Entertainment Weekly‘s request for comment.

Scream Queens, which debuted in 2015 and ran for two seasons, centered on a university sorority rocked by a string of murders. The slasher satire starred Emma Roberts, Billie Lourd, Jamie Lee Curtis, Lea Michele, Niecy Nash, and a pre-blockbuster-star Glen Powell.