Keke Palmer has shared how her experience working at Disney differed from her time at Nickelodeon.
During an appearance on Claudia and Jackie Oshry’s The Toast podcast, the 31-year-old actor reflected on her big breaks throughout her career. She mentioned a few of the films – including Barbershop II and Akeelah and the Bee – she did as a child, noting that these works led to her working with Nickelodeon.
“The thing that put Keke Palmer on the map like boooom, was True Jackson, VP,” she told Claudia Oshry. “After that, my life was changed, honey.”
Claudia also called Palmer “one of the few people that did both,” as she was part of Nickelodeon and Disney Channel projects. In 2007, Palmer starred in the hit Disney Channel Original movie Jump In!, alongside Corbin Bleu.
Palmer was also asked if she liked working on one of the two networks more than the other. However, she said that this question wasn’t easy to answer, so she first explained what she liked most about Disney.
“Disney is really amazing when it comes to, not only the storytelling you see on screen, but the storytelling within the company,” the Nope star said. “They are storytelling through marketing, through their employees. They’ve got the pins in the office.”
She continued to gush about why she loves the fact that Disney is like “a whole universe.”
“I think that feels really good when you’re a kid because the magic doesn’t end. There’s an element that being a part of it is really, really fun,” Palmer added.
The actor then shared the benefits of working with Nickelodeon, saying the company’s pay “was really awesome.” She also claimed that while Disney “has a way of making you want to be a part” of what you’re doing, that wasn’t the case for Nickelodeon.
“Nickelodeon’s kind of like, ‘Come in and get this check.’ It wasn’t about making it necessarily exciting,” she said. “Except for that slime.”
Palmer went on to recall an experience where she got “slimed,” as the network was known for dumping green slime on actors’ heads to either celebrate or embarrass them.
“One day, we were doing this big promotional thing about all the new shows that were coming to Nickelodeon. We had to get slimed. Obviously, when you’re filming things, you don’t just film it once. You film it multiple times,” she explained.
She also said the incident happened while in her “weave era,” referring to the terminology for having artificial or natural extensions sewn into human hair.
“When I tell you that they slimed me, then they had to wash all of it out. I was under the dryer for hours, just to get slimed again?” Palmer added. “Oh honey, I hated that slime after that. It was too much.”
Palmer has previously opened up about her personal life during her rise to stardom. During an interview with People last month, she spoke out about being in an “inappropriate” relationship with a 20-year-old man, while she was working on True Jackson, VP, at the age of 15.
“I was trying to balance between being really young, but also feeling quite mature. If I thought it was inappropriate, then I wouldn’t have done it,” she explained. “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.”
The relationship – which Palmer said she kept hidden for years from her loved ones – lasted until the actor was 20. However, she also confessed that the five-year romance had a long-lasting negative impact.
“I wasn’t mentally able to process and understand things that would’ve made that relationship appropriate,” the Scream Queens alum added. “The power dynamic put me in a place that harmed me in ways I couldn’t have known. I didn’t have the language or the strength to accept that who he met was a child, not the woman I wanted to become.”
