Keke Palmer Hits a Perfect Nicki Minaj Impression on ‘Fallon’

Keke Palmer has been handling the Met Gala with grace since her first hosting gig in 2021, but during last night’s episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, she detailed an encounter with Nicki Minaj she thought might go left.

At this year’s Met Gala, Palmer said she approached Minaj as the “Super Freaky Girl” chatted with designer Marc Jacobs and his husband, Charly. Palmer wanted to thank her in person for previously connecting her to star photographer and director David LaChapelle for a baby shower photo shoot via DM.

“She’s in the middle of talking to them and she’s like, ‘Unh-unh. You, I need to talk to you. Hold on,’” Palmer recalled, with an on-point impression of the rapper. “And I’m like, I done did something. Nicki about to cuss me out at the Met Gala.” Turns out, Minaj had some sage words for the actress. 

“She’s like, ‘Look, I don’t read the press. I don’t know everything that’s going on, but I just want to tell you, nobody knows what it’s like when we turn off the lights and we gotta be with ourselves. So you do whatever you need to do to be good with you.’”

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Palmer captured some of the anecdote in her new memoir being promoted on the show, Master of Me: The Secret to Controlling Your Narrative. She and Fallon explained that the the book is full of advice and experiences she’s collected over the last 10 years and especially in light of the birth of her son, Leo. The book details her public split with Leo’s father, Darius Jackson, who chastised her on social media for her appearance at an Usher concert last year. Soon after, Palmer and Jackson raised domestic violence allegations against each other in court documents and battled for custody of Leo. Since then, Palmer has said they’ve reached a custody agreement that works for them.  

Master of Me also details some rough encounters on the set of Ryan Murphy’s slasher series Scream Queens, including when Murphy “ripped” into her for missing a day on set she hadn’t been scheduled for and a racist remark from a white actor.