'Biggest blessing': Keke Palmer announces pregnancy with BF Darius Jackson during 'SNL' opening monologue
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Keke Palmer, the 29-year-old actress made the announcement that she is pregnant while hosting 'Saturday Night Live' for the first time on November 3. She is expecting her first child with her boyfriend Darius Jackson. "There's some rumors going around, people have been in my comments saying Keke's having a baby, Keke's pregnant, and I wanna set the record straight — I am!" she exclaimed, opening up a long gray jacket to reveal her growing baby bump during her opening monologue.
"I gotta say, though, it is bad went people on the internet spread rumors about you y'all, but it's even worse when they're correct. I mean, like, I was trying so hard to keep it on the down low, cause I got a lot of stuff going on, you know?" she continued. "... But honestly this has been the biggest blessing, and I am so excited. Guys, I'm going to be a mom," she said during the 'SNL' show.
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Palmer also added, "Even though some people feel a little weird about me having a baby cause I was a child actor, I just wanna say, look, I'm 29, I'm grown, I have sex, I own a home, I stormed the Capitol on January 6, you know? Things adults do," as per PEOPLE.
She ended the monologue by saying that she came to the realization that she is the same person she has always been, and she is happy with it. “When I first got into comedy, and I dreamed of standing on this stage, I asked myself, ‘Keke, who will you be? Will you be like Maya Rudolph? Eddie Murphy? A Kristen Wiig-Type?’ And now I can tell you exactly who I am: Baby, I’m Keke Palmer.”
Keke Palmer's monologue! pic.twitter.com/NYp00Yy0jc
— Saturday Night Live - SNL (@nbcsnl) December 4, 2022
The specifics of Palmer's relationship with Jackson have mostly remained a secret. She discussed being "Instagram official" with Jackson when she appeared on 'The Tamron Hall Show' in November of last year, albeit the pictures of the two of them are no longer on her profile.
"It became more difficult to hide," she said of choosing to post pictures with Jackson. "We spend all this time together, and he really is my closest friend, so it just becomes a thing where I'm not gonna hide something that makes me happy." "It's not gonna be everything you see, my job is my job, but at the end of the day this is somebody that is important to me so why not," Palmer added.
Speaking about her boyfriend, Palmer noted that Jackson's "very industry-adjacent." "I've always been somebody that hasn't wanted too much industry stuff in my life, he's very industry-adjacent, meaning he understands it but that's not what he's about," she explained.
'The Nope' star also posted a video with Jackson on TikTok in the same month in which she held up a fan to ostensibly conceal her and Jackson kissing. She captioned the video with "Lady Miss takes what she Wants." Palmer explained to Harper's Bazaar in March 2020 why she prefers to keep her personal life private. "I don't really do relationship stuff online, mainly because I don't know how I would do it without looking, like, cheesy or something, you know?" she told the outlet. "Yes, I'm a hundred percent authentic, but there is stuff that I do save for family and friends."