Keke Palmer On Why She Made Her Pregnancy Announcement On ‘SNL’: “That’s Something My Kid Can Have Forever”

Keke Palmer says her decision to announce her pregnancy while hosting Saturday Night Live was based in part on the fact that they didn’t know how else to handle the private news publicly.

The No actress opened up to Vanity purse about the highly publicized maternity announcement, which went viral after she confirmed her pregnancy while hosting the NBC sketch show on Dec. 3. Palmer said that because people were already noticing and “commenting” about the physical changes in her body, she felt like she had to address it, but she didn’t quite get it until then.

“I knew it was going to be something to cover it up — people were already commenting on it,” she said. “I didn’t really know how to handle it. It just felt like it was never the right time, and having a kid is so private.

Palmer added that she ultimately felt she had to “let people know,” and with the highly visible hosting gig there, it seemed like a good time to make her announcement a special one and in the comedic nature of lean the show. “You need a certain level of physicality to do SNL,” she said. “It was so much fun saying it during my monologue. That is something my child can have forever.”

The actress left her mark SNL during her performance in December, addressing the online rumors surrounding her pregnancy directly in her opening monologue. “People have been in my comments saying, ‘Keke is having a baby,’ ‘Keke is pregnant,’ and I want to get the facts straight,” said the actress and former Good morning America host said at the time. “I am!”

During the show opener, Palmer told the audience she had deliberately tried to “keep it low because I’ve got a lot of stuff going on,” before jokingly adding that one of those things was “a booze sponsorship on the line.'”

Among that growing list of “things” for Palmer, who spoke The Hollywood Reporter for her November 2022 cover story, is the launch of her new digital platform KeyTV. She was also recently announced to star opposite Sacha Baron Cohen in David O. Russell’s next film Super toys.

The multi-hyphenate, who said she was “blessed” after her baby news, also took the time to point out how some fans who watched Palmer grow up on screen would feel “a little weird if I had a baby” .

“I just want to say, look, I’m 29. I’m an adult. OK, I’m having sex. I have a house,” Palmer said before joking, “I stormed the Capitol on January 6.”