Not every interaction with Ryan Murphy was a positive one for Keke Palmer.
In her new book, Master Of Me: The Secret To Controlling Your Narrative, the actress reportedly wrote about an instance where she arranged to do another job during a break from filming Scream Queens.
After Palmer, 31, decided to fulfill her duties at the other job, she allegedly got a call from Murphy, 59, who “ripped” into her.
“It was kind of like I was in the dean’s office,” she recalled to the Los Angeles Times in an interview published Sunday, November 10. “He was like, ‘I’ve never seen you behave like this. I can’t believe that you, out of all people, would do something like this.’”
Murphy created the 2015 Fox anthology series Scream Queens, which Palmer appeared on for the show’s two-season run.
While Palmer said she apologized and thought both parties were moving forward, her mindset shifted when she had a conversation with a coworker about it.
“I said, ‘Ryan talked to me and I guess he’s cool, it’s fine,’” Palmer recalled. “And she was like, ‘It’s bad,’ trying to make me scared or something, which was a little irritating.”
In an excerpt from the book obtained by the Los Angeles Times, Palmer said she once felt like she might go on to be one of those people “you keep seeing in Ryan’s world — Sarah Paulson, Emma Roberts.” But after the alleged incident, Palmer believes things may have soured.
“I’m still not sure Ryan cared, or got it, and that’s OK because he was just centering his business, which isn’t a problem to me,” she wrote. “But what I do know is 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.”
Us Weekly has reached out to Murphy’s rep for comment.
In another portion of the book, Palmer described how a white actor on the show, whom she referred to as “Brenda,” once made a racist remark to her on set.
Palmer said “Brenda” was upset after clashing with a colleague. To try and improve the situation, Palmer suggested they “have fun and respect each other,” to which her costar told her, “Keke, literally, just don’t. Who do you think you are? Martin F— Luther King?”
According to the Los Angeles Times, Palmer declined to name the actor because she wanted to take the power out of her words and not make the moment about “Brenda.”
Master Of Me: The Secret To Controlling Your Narrative hits shelves on Tuesday, November 19.
