Keke Palmer recently spoke to the Los Angeles Times about her upcoming memoir “Master of Me: The Secret to Controlling Your Narrative,” which includes one story that alleges Ryan Murphy “ripped” into the actor during their time working on “Scream Queens” together. Palmer played Zayday Williams in the Fox horror comedy, which ran for two seasons in 2015 and 2016.
As reported by the Times, Palmer describes in the book “how she’d been given her shooting schedule and arranged to fulfill another business obligation on a day off. But when that day rolled around, production told her that she was actually needed on set. She decided to keep her prior obligation, which resulted in an angry phone call with Murphy in which he ‘ripped’ into her and told her she was unprofessional.”
“It was kind of like I was in the dean’s office,” Palmer told the publication while asked about the incident. “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.’”
Variety has reached out to Murphy’s representative for comment. The showrunner did not respond to the Times’ request for comment.
Palmer said she apologized to Murphy for not being able to film that day due to a prior business obligation, and she thought that would be the end of the ordeal. A few days later, however, she was talking to a co-star in her trailer who said that Murphy was apparently still agitated.
“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,” Palmer said.
“Scream Queens” co-starred Murphy regulars such as Emma Roberts, Niecy Nash and Billie Lourd. Palmer thought joining the show might make her one of those actors “you keep seeing in Ryan’s world,” but she believes that possibility went out the door after Murphy “ripped” into her.
“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 the memoir. “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.”
Head over to the Los Angeles Times’ website to read Palmer’s interview in its entirety. The actor’s memoir, “Master of Me: The Secret to Controlling Your Narrative,” publishes Nov. 19.
