Keke Palmer first gained attention as a child actor in Barbershop 2: Back in Business (2004) and earned acclaim for her starring role in Akeelah and the Bee (2006).
Her fame saw her earn so much to make her a millionaire at the age of 12. Her parents hired a business manager for her and she also benefited from a Coogan account, which was designed to hold a percentage of a child star’s earnings.
“They wanted me to know that they weren’t the ones controlling my money. They had heard these stories, and my mom said, I don’t want money to come in between me and my child,” Palmer said on “Club Shay Shay,” as per Afrotech.
In the interview, the actress and singer reflected on the complexities of becoming a millionaire at the age of 12 when she had little financial knowledge and business management skills.
“I became a millionaire at 12. To expect everybody to have become a millionaire at 12 and learn money management and have a business manager at 12 just seems unrealistic to me,” she said on the podcast. “I started working 10, 15 years before most of my generation had their first job, and this is like most; obviously some people are different.”
Although her parents tried to guide her finances, by the time she turned 18, she had filed for bankruptcy. “I was so spooked. I was like, ‘What went wrong?’” she mentioned during the Building Wealth Today for Tomorrow Financial Empowerment Summit held in October, according to Afro Tech.
Today, the actress engages in better financial management practices.
“If I got $10,000 in the bank, then my house would be $500 a month. That’s how under I mean, because I can probably afford something $2,500 maybe, but I’m going way under,” she said during the panel. “You know why? Because I want to invest in my business. So if I want to invest in my business, then the material things that I’m having currently might have to take a short back. Instead of wearing Gucci, I’m wearing Zara. I live in a good place. I drive a cool car, ’cause my money is going elsewhere… I’ve got a Toyota right now in my driveway.”
In her new December cover story for Self magazine, the actress also reflected on the isolation that often comes with fame.
“It is lonely. How I deal with it is to not center myself,” she told the magazine in an interview.
“I think about all the other people who feel weird in the world. If we take all the glamour out of it and all the specifics and uniqueness of what it means to be famous, it just means feeling weird.”
