Keke Palmer weighs ‘toxic’ pairing with ex Darius Jackson

The 31-year-old media mogul took time to think about her ex-husband while promoting her upcoming girlfriend comedy “One of Them Days,” which co-stars singer SZA.

Palmer and Jackson have a son, Leodis, who will celebrate his first birthday next February.

Palmer and Jackson, a fitness trainer, were said to have started dating in 2021. She would reveal her pregnancy a year later while hosting Saturday Night Live.

Following the now-infamous public shaming on X (formerly Twitter) in 2023 when Jackson He called The “True Jackson, VP” star wearing a bodysuit she wore to Usher’s concert — “It’s the outfit though… you’re a mother” — fans were starting to worry that Palmer’s coupling with Jackson might be toxic.

This assumption would be confirmed when Palmer applied Restraining order against Jackson later that year, alleging physical and emotional abuse.

talking to PiecesPalmer claims that she initially had difficulty accepting the harsh reality of her relationship with Jackson.

“There’s an ‘excitement’ that happens with that word,” she says. “But there are often no other words to describe such a toxic dynamic.”

Palmer admits that the birth of her son was the wake-up call she needed to leave the relationship, “before it had a chance to become something I had to survive.”

For years, Palmer says she did what she could to make excuses for Jackson’s behavior, which she attributes to observing others while overlooking her own needs.

“You can say, ‘I know you’re not like that,’ or ‘I know that’s not the case,’ or ‘I know you’re a good person deep down,'” she now realizes, adding, “You can make a lot of excuses for behavior that could have stopped.” .

Even as an alleged victim of domestic violence, Palmer was more concerned with how Jackson’s abuse might lead fans to pity her — something she never wanted.

“I hated it,” she admits. “It was personal junk. It wasn’t worth a place in the middle of something I worked so hard to encourage and enable.”

Despite the two being seen celebrating Palmer’s birthday and Jackson recently enlisting in the military, the two remain apart during their son’s “peaceful engagement.”

Palmer also provided details on where things stand in the wake of a flurry of headlines coined from an alleged conversation on the set of “Scream Queens,” Ryan Murphy’s 2015 horror-comedy series.

According to Palmer’s 2023 memoir “Master of Me,” the moment occurred after she tried to ease tension between two white co-stars who were arguing. One of those stars—whom Palmer renamed “Brenda” in the book—then turned to Kiki and said, “Kiki, don’t do that. Who are you—Martin Luther King?”

Palmer did not identify the person directly but said he never apologized. But they reached out to the actress via Instagram to congratulate her on the book.

“I said, ‘Hey, thanks, it feels good,'” she revealed. “She was just checking the temperature. She knows what she did.”

As for Murphy himself, per Explosionwhen she once yelled at Palmer for taking a pre-scheduled vacation, the producer had yet to respond to her claims — not that that’s what Palmer had in mind, anyway.

“I did what I had to do for me, and it got me in trouble with one of the most famous and successful men in the industry, and sometimes achieving your success can cost you doing the same thing,” she noted.

Palmer’s challenges in life and career were paramount in fighting to keep her vision alive in One of Them Days, her first big screen role since 2022’s Nope.

As co-star and executive producer of the project, Palmer says it took nearly five years of development and four rewrites of the script before finally arriving at the final product — a story based on two friends doing their best to stay optimistic and afloat in a world that’s not going anywhere. Where gentrification is quickly becoming the norm.

“I had to be really specific about what to change,” the artist shared, “what the jokes would be, what story we were telling about where these two characters were coming from. I was more than just an actor taking on this role. I really cared about the project as a whole.”

Palmer’s next big role, a dark comedy called “I Love Boosters,” shares a similar theme with “One of Them Days,” but is ultimately about building and sustaining community.

“You can’t make the world care about you. You just can’t,” she notes. “But if you try your best, you can build community and fight for the things you want.”

Palmer’s comedy “One of Them Days,” which stars SZA in her first film role, will hit theaters on January 17, 2025. Watch the trailer above.