Mamas At Work: Keke Palmer On Turning 30, Sticking By Her Boundaries

Keke Palmer is putting herself all the way out there, and she couldn’t be more thrilled. The Emmy-winning actress, singer, TV host, and mother is preparing to release her second book, a memoir titled Master of Me: The Secret to Controlling Your Narrative, which is a follow-up to her 2017 guide, I Don’t Belong to You: Quiet the Noise and Find Your Voice. “I’m so excited. I feel like I didn’t know if I was going to write another one after the first one, even though it was a good experience,” she tells ESSENCE. “I just didn’t know when I would have something to say again. So I was excited and inspired this time around, and I’m happy to see what people think of it.”

When she released her first book, she was a young twentysomething finding herself in Hollywood. But life has changed greatly for the starlet, who is now in her 30s and is a proud single mother to son, Leodis. Still, she says her memoir, which focuses on doing the work to be at peace even when life is “lifing” and people are talking, is a continuation of the message she delivered in 2017.

“I think the works are very similar,” she says. “[I Don’t Belong to You] was about separating yourself from people’s ideas of you, perceptions of you, and who they want you to be. Master of Me has an aspect of that, but it goes further in terms of self-mastery and what that means to me. It’s about my business, balance in my world, being an ambitious person dealing with trauma, how trauma influenced who I am and how I’m moving and how I need to operate differently, all those things.”

It’s also Palmer doing what she does best, which is being in charge of telling her story. We talked with Palmer about what inspired her to release a memoir now, how boundaries have been a game-changer personally and professionally, and why her 30s have given her more clarity and confidence than ever before.

ESSENCE: The title is Master of Me. First and foremost, what does it mean? What does it mean for an individual to be a master of themselves?

Keke Palmer: I think life is so unpredictable. That’s kind of like the beauty and the pain of it. There’s so much that is out of your control. No matter how much you prepare, you’re still not going to really get it all the way right. Life’s just going to show you that and teach you something. So I think self-mastery is being prepared for that, knowing and accepting and surrendering to that, and giving yourself the tools to be able to manage it when those changes do come.

What was the catalyst for creating this memoir? What made you feel like this is now the time for me to tell my story in full?

I think that probably turning 30, me having my kid, and everything that happened through that, that really allowed me to say, okay, well, I think I have something to offer or to say, having experienced so many things and things that I was not even prepared for. So I think that’s literally the catalyst, which is all the changes and realizations and things that happened in this third decade of my life.

I don’t think there’s any really easy way to express how to create boundaries. I don’t think it’s an easy thing to do, and only you know your boundaries, which is why it’s so difficult. Selfishness, to me, is when you have it, and you don’t want to share it as opposed to when you don’t have it, and you don’t want to share it. I think self-preservation is important for being useful and good to anybody. So if you feel like you don’t have it, you don’t have the energy, you can’t do what’s being asked of you, you cannot extend yourself in the way that someone’s asking you to, whether it be professionally, personally, or otherwise. I think that’s how you can gauge when you have to put up a boundary. What helped me with boundaries, aside from having my son and that bringing a different level of self-care, was the reality of knowing that I’m not going to be good to anybody if I don’t learn how to have boundaries because the lack of boundaries is going to stop me from being able to be my best. And so my love and concern for being able to actually be a proper conduit to my message and who I felt I could be in the people I love lives or even to my audience, that’s actually what helped me to also have better boundaries.

Got you. And can you share one or two that are essential to you?

I do like to have no work on the weekends, but I can’t tell you that that’s always promised. I think the biggest thing for me is saying no when I want to say no. Straight up. It’s not always going to be a specific time or day or thing or blah, blah, blah. No, I exercise boundaries every day. When I’m done, I’m done. When I don’t want to do it, I don’t want to do it. Last night, I had a really crazy schedule. I had to fly back from Atlanta to LA to get up at 7:00 AM to go and do this press stuff that I have to do for a movie that I have coming out at the top of the year. They asked me if I could do a fitting later on when I landed so I could get prepared for the following day. I said, no, I can’t do it. So I don’t know that it’s really any particular thing or that I have these crazy different rules. I think that’s the whole point that I speak to in my book is that it doesn’t have to be like that. It’s just choosing you when you need to choose you.

And how has motherhood impacted what you will and won’t allow yourself to deal with when it comes to owning your time?

Motherhood has changed my ability to do what I just described. It just made it a lot easier to see what’s important to me and what’s not, what’s taken from me and needed, and what’s taken from me that’s not needed because I have to be good for my son. So if something is stopping my ability to do that, then it’s easy to get it out of here. I just think having children puts everything in perspective. What you weren’t sure was important or not becomes clear.

Something I’ve always enjoyed about you is the importance of owning your narrative and not being swayed by what people are saying and doing. And that’s difficult for a lot of folks because we are in the social media age, and we want to be liked. Why has it been so important to you to make sure that you are not swayed by what people say? You tell your story the way you want to tell it, whether it’s through a book, whether it’s through your podcast, you’re both vulnerable, while also very much in control of what you are giving out to the people. Why has that always been so essential for you?

I think because of the way that I came into the industry; I was taught as a performer this is a platform. People are looking at you, especially when a group that you represent is underrepresented, to take it seriously. I was raised to take that very seriously. My sense of control is based on, I should say, not even control, but my sense of self-management is rooted in the foundation of taking my responsibility seriously. That’s not what everybody does or needs to do. I think it’s just a part of me and why I do what I do. Everybody represents something different and unique, and as public figures, artists, they’re all saying something different. But for me, it comes with a different feeling for me of responsibility. So, I try to really put my best foot forward.

I know you mentioned that turning 30 was one of the catalysts for writing this book. It’s only been a short amount of time that you’ve been 30, but how does life feel different on this side?

I don’t know if it’s 30 or if it’s 30 and the baby, but to me, there’s this deep feeling of feeling like I have so much more time, which is funny because I’m getting older, but I feel like I have so much more time. Everything’s not an emergency. I feel like I have a greater sense of patience and kind of like an ease that things are going to work out. I think by the time you’re 30, you’ve had a lot of ups and downs and different experiences where you feel like, oh my gosh, this is an emergency! Then, the universe shows you that everything is going to find its way. And so I feel like that’s something that I really, truly feel at this age. I also feel like, like I said, I know what’s most important. That sense of clarity gives me a different feeling of peace. I feel a deep sense of satisfaction, and I’m open to the revelations that I’ll continue to have. I know that this is just the beginning of what life has to show me.

Master of Me: The Secret to Controlling Your Narrative will be available wherever books are sold on November 19.