Keke Palmer and Demi Lovato have more in common than being child stars in the early 2000s. The “Camp Rock” and “True Jackson VP” stars reconnected to record an episode of Palmer’s “Baby, It’s Keke Palmer” podcast during which they opened up about the highs and lows of reaching stardom before hitting puberty.
“I became the breadwinner of my family just by proxy. You know what I mean? It’s just what happened,” Palmer shared. “They had to help with my career and we’re seeing money that we never had seen. That stress for me, especially not being able to process it, was a big triggering point. And then never wanting to be sad or make anybody feel bad about it because I don’t want them to be stressed. And then not having a lot of time to have fun and be a kid.”
That was a sentiment Lovato knew all too well, adding: “I actually had this mantra that was like, if you’re going to work me like an adult, I’m going to party like an adult. And I got into some bad stuff at a young age.”
And while some of that “bad stuff” led to Lovato’s long battle with substance abuse, the former child stars also admit that the premature responsibility impacted their romantic choices.
“I feel like people don’t understand that that’s what we were dealing with. I found myself dating,” Palmer explained. “I’m 15. Why is my boyfriend 20?”
“Why was my boyfriend 30?” Lovato added.
Though the two had a light-hearted tone as they reflected on their previous dating experiences, that did not diminish the seriousness of the situation. Because while it may have been a normal scenarios for the people around them in the entertainment industry, Palmer says she almost had a “mental break” when she realized she was getting taken advantage of and “being exploited.”
This is not the first time Palmer has opened up about her age-gap relationship. In 2024, the actress revealed that the relationship started during one of the highs of her professional career on “True Jackson VP,” but a low in her personal life.
“”I had a great time doing ‘True Jackson VP,’ but it was also a very stressful, difficult, depressive time[…] I was trying to balance between being really young, but also feeling quite mature. If I thought it was inappropriate, then I wouldn’t have done it,” she told People magazine of the relationship. “Obviously, I shouldn’t have been 15 dating no 20-year-old, but in my mind it was like ‘I got a full-time job. . . . Can’t nobody understand me but a grown man.’ But he knew there was a lot of stuff that there’s no damn way for me to understand at damn 15.”
“It wasn’t until I was a real grown woman, and even then we know we’ve still got more time to grow. But by 26, 27, 28, I had finally experienced, I think, genuine love,” she concluded. “Not that I didn’t love that [other] person, but it wasn’t until I’d felt what it was like for someone to love me back and to actually give me respect, that I’ve realized that relationship was wrong.”
