Dear Gossips,   

As expected, Jordan Peele’s Nope was the #1 movie at the box office this weekend so he’s three for three, as all three of his films have opened at #1 at the domestic box office. But that hasn’t been the dominant conversation about Nope on social media for the last few days. Instead it was Keke Palmer trending along with Zendaya. And it’s because of these tweets: 

 

The chatter was loud, Keke heard about it, and she responded last night: 

 

Is this a case of Two Things Can Be True? Of course colorism exists in Hollywood and Zendaya herself has acknowledged it. At the same time, it’s unfair to Keke for this to be the reason she’s trending when she could be just straight up celebrating her #1 movie – and she is crazy f-cking good in this movie…just as she’s been crazy f-cking good so consistently for so long; as Duana pointed out, since at least a dozen years ago on Degrassi:

 

Duana has been leading the Keke Palmer appreciation here since 2014 and back then, following Keke’s debut on Broadway as Cinderella, was asking why she wasn’t getting more attention. From there, though, Keke has continued to build and grow, strategically. As she told British Vogue this month: 

“I think everybody has at least two evolutions in their career. But a child actor has three. One where they’re a kid, one where they’re an adult, and then the reinvention.”

The reinvention of Keke Palmer has just hit on a whole new level. And she had it planned all along. 

Yours in gossip, 

Lainey