Keke Palmer has recently addressed repercussions of dating an older man at the age of 15.
Speaking to PEOPLE, the Password host revealed that she became romantically involved with an unnamed man when she was playing the role in Nickelodeon series, True Jackson, VP.
“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,’” she said.
Keke told the outlet, “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.”
The Akeelah and the Bee star soon realised that she “wasn’t mentally able to process and understand things that would’ve made that relationship appropriate”.
Keke explained how her “ex knew there was a lot of stuff that there’s no damn way for [her] to understand at damn 15”.
“The power dynamic put me in a place that harmed me in ways I couldn’t have known,” wrote Keke in her upcoming book, Master in Me.
She continued, “I didn’t have the language or the strength to accept that who he met was a child, not the woman I wanted to become.”
The Hustlers star, who is now 31, mentioned it took her years to finally be able to experience “genuine love”.
“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 realised that relationship was wrong,” she added.
