Earlier this year, Keke Palmer welcomed her first baby — a boy named Leodis (or Leo, for short) alongside her boyfriend Darius Jackson.
Last week, the family was a topic of conversation after Darius publicly shamed Keke for what she wore to an Usher concert.
Keke seemed to respond to the shaming on Instagram, and has now even released a new merch line that says "I'm A Motha."
Anyyyyywaaaay, all of this context made me even more frustrated for her when I read her recent profile on the Cut. The interview took place before all of this went down, but Keke talked about her state of mind as a new mom.
"After having my baby, I’ve just gotten so much more powerful," she said. "I’m just so strengthened in a crazy way. Strutting my stuff, enjoying. I’ll be honest, I think before I even had the baby, I was really actually quite self-conscious. In a way that you would expect, considering the kind of work that I do as a public figure."
"I was trying to work with my trainer, Corey Calliet, and he was just like, 'Well, we are never going to try and get your body back to how it was before a baby because you birthed a child.' It’s like, that’s not something to hide, that’s something to embrace."
"That is the whole aura of what’s happening with me in this big boss era as I come into my 30s and I have my baby boy," she said. "I’m just continuing to spread my wings as a young woman. My headspace is just to continue to inspire and encourage myself and anybody else who wants to go down that road with me. Because we’re growing, and we are changing."
"It’s all about loving who I am and loving what I experienced and what I’ve gone through that’s gotten me here. A lot of gratitude for me."
