Keke Palmer Shuts Down Online Career Comparisons to Zendaya: ‘Been a Leading Lady Since I Was 11’

“A great example of colorism is to believe I can be compared to anyone,” Keke Palmer said

Keke Palmer is a talent all her own.

On Sunday, the Nope actress addressed conversations on Twitter that were drawing comparisons between her career and that of Zendaya.

Though Palmer did not reply to any specific tweet, one such post read: “I’d like someone to do a deep-drive on the similarities and differences between Keke Palmer and Zendaya’s careers. This may be one of the clearest examples of how colorism plays out in Hollywood.”

“They were both child-stars, but their mainstream popularity is very different,” the Saturday tweet added. (Zendaya, 25, started on the Disney Channel and now headlines Euphoria, for which she won an Emmy, and is part of the Spider-Man movies.)

“A great example of colorism is to believe I can be compared to anyone,” 28-year-old Palmer wrote in her initial tweet. “I’m the youngest talk show host ever. The first Black woman to star in her own show on Nickelodeon, & the youngest & first Black Cinderella on broadway. I’m an incomparable talent. Baby, THIS, is Keke Palmer.”

I’ve been a leading lady since I was 11 years old. I have over 100+ credits, and currently starring in an original screenplay that’s the number one film at the box office #NOPE. I’ve had a blessed career thus far, I couldn’t ask for more but God continues to surprise me.🥹🥳❤️🙏🏾

— Keke Palmer (@KekePalmer) July 24, 2022

The actress went on to say, “I’ve been a leading lady since I was 11 years old.”

“I have over 100+ credits, and currently starring in an original screenplay that’s the number one film at the box office #NOPE,” Palmer said. “I’ve had a blessed career thus far, I couldn’t ask for more but God continues to surprise me.”

Palmer, this year, marks 20 years in the industry. She had her big breakout starring roles in the 2006 film Akeelah and the Bee and on Nickelodeon’s True Jackson, VP, which premiered in 2008. She has since gone on to star on television series like Scream Queens, Masters of Sex and Berlin Station, and co-hosted Good Morning America’s Strahan, Sara & Keke from 2019 to 2020.

In 2022 alone, Palmer starred in thrillers Alice and the recently released Nope, as well as voiced the character of Izzy Hawthorne in Lightyear.

Palmer spoke with PEOPLE back in March, when she recalled experiencing “what we’ve come to know now as microaggressions” as a kid.

“It’s, ‘Oh, the teacher pinched me, but she ain’t never put her hands on the other kids.’ Or it’s, ‘Oh, somebody said somebody lied in class, and it wasn’t me but somehow I got blamed,’ ” she explained. “It was the constant bullying that I experienced where it just didn’t match up.”

Because at home, “I never felt bad about being Black, so that’s why I did not understand really what most of those things were coming from,” continued Palmer who, aside from her acting career, authored the book I Don’t Belong to You and founded the Saving Our Cinderellas arm of the Saving Our Daughters nonprofit. “[My parents] gave me such a great sense of pride about who I am.”

Ultimately, Palmer decided to block out the negativity. “The only answer I have is to go where the love is, to focus on the people that support you, to focus on the people that do see you,” she said. “Don’t beg the Oscars to nominate you if the NAACP Awards is already acknowledging you.”

“Go where people respect and feel that you are deserving of love and just don’t pay attention to the rest. I’m not going to change everybody’s mind,” Palmer advised. “Everybody’s not going to like me, so I just have to focus on the ones that do.”