Keke Palmer Claims Ryan Murphy ‘Bullied’ Her On ‘Scream Queens’ Set

Former Scream Queens star Keke Palmer has accused showrunner Ryan Murphy of bullying.

“It was kind of like I was in the dean’s office,” Palmer, 31, said of the incident in her new book, Master of Me: The Secret to Controlling Your Narrative.

The actress commented on her interactions with Murphy, 59, after a mishap led her to miss work. Palmer was originally off on the day she missed work, but production later changed the schedule, and she had chosen to honor a prior commitment rather than change her plans for the new shoot date.

“He was like, ‘I’ve never seen you behave like this,” Palmer said. “I can’t believe that you, out of all people, would do something like this.”

She had thought that she and Murphy had moved past the issue until days later when an unnamed cast member made her think otherwise.

In her book, Palmer hoped to speak up for herself and honor her prior commitment.

Other incidents on set gave her pause, including the time a white co-star she only identified as “Brenda” allegedly made a racist remark toward her during filming. Brenda and another unnamed cast member disagreed, and Palmer intervened to help resolve differences by suggesting they “have fun and respect each other.”

“Who do you think you are? Martin Luther King?” Brenda replied.

“It was a weighted thing that she said,” Palmer wrote in her memoir. “But I didn’t allow that weight to be projected onto me because I know who I am. I’m not a victim; that’s not my storyline, sweetie. I don’t care what she said. If I allow what she said to cripple me, then she would.”

Skyler Samuels, 30, recently posted on Instagram about how Palmer helped to protect her from similar bullying.

“Scream Queens was a very challenging show to make,” Samuels wrote, “Keke was one of the only people who stood up for me. She was brave enough to have my back even though she knew it would make her a target of bullies on set. I have unending gratitude for the professionalism and kindness Keke showed me.”

While she had initially thought she and Murphy were on good terms after the fight, she has not starred in one of his projects since and believes it led to the deterioration of their professional relationship.

“I’m still not sure Ryan cared or got it, and that’s okay because he was centering his business,” Palmer wrote, “which isn’t a problem. But I do know that 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.”