Keke Palmer is sharing her happy life after overcoming toxic relationships. While fans know about her struggles with her recent boyfriend, Darius Jackson, the 31-year-old actress and singer also recalls a low-key relationship early on in her career that had a negative impact on her life. She will soon release her book, Master of Me: The Secret to Controlling Your Narrative, according to PEOPLE.
Palmer experienced her first love while gaining popularity from her role in Nickelodeon’s successful sitcom, True Jackson VP.
She revealed that she started dating someone five years older than her as she was merely 15 years old at the time, while her ex was age 20.
The actress/singer recalled,
“I was 15, he was 20.”
“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 said.
Palmer went on to say,
“Obviously I shouldn’t have been 15 dating no 20-year-old …but 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.”
She concealed the relationship from her parents and the public. The relationship lasted until she was 20 years old. She later realized
“[She] wasn’t mentally able to process and understand things that would’ve made that relationship appropriate.”
She wrote in her upcoming book,
“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.”
The actress went on to say,
“It wasn’t until I was a real grown woman, and even then we know we’ve still got more time to grow. But by 26, 27, 28, I had finally experienced, I think, genuine love,” reflecting on her relationship with her ex Jackson.
“Not that I didn’t love that [other] person, but it wasn’t until I’d felt what it was like for someone to love me back and to actually give me respect, that I’ve realized that relationship was wrong,”
said Palmer.
