Oprah Winfrey on Knowing Your Worth

Oprah Winfrey sits down with Keke for a personal, uplifting, and honest conversation about the life she built, the freedom she earned, and the meaningful moments she’s sharing on The Oprah Podcast. Oprah opens up about what the man troubles in her 20s taught her about love, the Maya Angelou advice that helped her handle criticism, and why she and Gayle King are total opposites after 50 years of friendship. Plus, she shares powerful advice and gems on self-worth, success, and Black womanhood that move Keke to tears. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Keke Palmer?

  I'm sitting down with Oprah Winfrey. Yes, Oprah as I know her. Orpa. The Emmy-winning host, producer, actor, author, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and media icon who changed daytime television, built her own network, created one of the most influential book clubs ever, and made millions of people feel like their story mattered. I was 12 years old when I first sat with Oprah on her show. So this moment is full circle in ways I am still processing. She's helped generations ask bigger questions about who they are and what they came here to do. But my question is, when you've been Oprah for this long, what still surprises you about yourself? Or about life? We're getting into joy, love, purpose, friendship,

• 0:44Keke Palmer?

  and what happens when the woman who gave everybody else aha moments is still having a few of her own. Baby, this is Keke Palmer.

• 1:23Keke Palmer?

  Today's episode is brought to you by our presenting sponsor, Seventh Generation. I know I'm extra. They know I'm extra. We've made peace with it. But my cleaning products don't get to be extra. They get to work. Seventh Generation keeps it simple, so I don't have to pretend otherwise. Let's get into today's show.

• 1:43Keke Palmer?

  Baby, this is Keke Palmer. And baby, this is Oprah Winfrey.

• 1:52Keke Palmer?

  Oh my gosh.

• 1:54Speaker 01

  I didn't know you were wearing white.

• 1:55Keke Palmer?

  Wait a minute, this outfit is everything.

• 1:58Speaker 01

  No, yours is everything.

• 1:59Keke Palmer?

  Stop!

• 1:59Speaker 01

  I started to wear black and white.

• 2:01Keke Palmer?

  You look so good. Why would you keep me up on my show like this?

• 2:04Speaker 01

  Come on, come on.

• 2:05Keke Palmer?

  This is crazy. Now wait, I have to ask, should I call you Ms. Winfrey, Oprah? Can I call you Oprah?

• 2:11Speaker 01

  Everybody calls me Oprah. You can also call me O.

• 2:13Keke Palmer?

  Yes, OK. Oh, I'm so happy to be with you.

• 2:16Speaker 01

  I'm so happy to be with you.

• 2:18Keke Palmer?

  Oh my gosh, it's always a good time to see you. And now this time, I get to actually talk with you in depth.

• 2:23Speaker 01

  I know. We've been at many things where we're like, listening to other people.

• 2:26Keke Palmer?

  Yes.

• 2:27Speaker 01

  All of those summits.

• 2:28Keke Palmer?

  Yep, conferences.

• 2:30Speaker 01

  Conferences and things.

• 2:30Keke Palmer?

  I'm in the conference era.

• 2:31Speaker 01

  I know.

• 2:32Keke Palmer?

  You know I'm at the right one if Oprah's there.

• 2:33Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:34Keke Palmer?

  Now, wait a minute.

• 2:35Speaker 01

  Sitting right next to you.

• 2:37Keke Palmer?

  I found out that your name was originally Orpa?

• 2:40Speaker 01

  It was Orpa, from the Bible. Ruth, 1st chapter 14th verse.

• 2:44Keke Palmer?

  I didn't know that.

• 2:45Speaker 01

  You know, it's that whole Ruth and Naomi story and, you know. Ruth said, "Wherever thou goest, I will go." And then Orpa said, "I'm going back, I'm sorry." Too long. The road's too long.

• 2:56Keke Palmer?

  Now, what made you go to Oprah?

• 2:58Speaker 01

  It is not what made me. I was a kid. And nobody knew how to spell it. So it turned out, on my birth certificate, it's Orpa. And then people started calling me Oprah. And so, it's just a difference between the P being before the R or after the R.

• 3:18Keke Palmer?

  Yeah.

• 3:18Speaker 01

  So, once they started with Oprah, that's it. I didn't learn until I was like, probably 20 or something, that, oh, this isn't really my name.

• 3:25Keke Palmer?

  And is it still on your birth certificate as Orpa?

• 3:27Speaker 01

  As Orpa.

• 3:28Keke Palmer?

  Wow. We have so much in common, because I'm actually Iki.

• 3:31Speaker 01

  Iki. I thought you were Lauren Kiana. I'm just being stupid. OK?

• 3:36Keke Palmer?

  Yes, I am. You know my, you know my name, Lauren Kiana.

• 3:39Speaker 01

  That's your real name.

• 3:40Keke Palmer?

  That is. I'm so happy that you knew that.

• 3:42Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 3:43Keke Palmer?

  That is very cool.

• 3:44Speaker 01

  You know how I know that?

• 3:45Keke Palmer?

  How?

• 3:45Speaker 01

  Because I watched your TED Talk.

• 3:47Keke Palmer?

  Well, I have a lot to ask you about that TED Talk.

• 3:49Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 3:49Keke Palmer?

  Because I feel like there's so much.

• 3:51Speaker 01

  I've never done one.

• 3:52Keke Palmer?

  Insight that you have to give me. Really?

• 3:54Speaker 01

  No, I've never done one. Tell me, what is it like?

• 3:55Keke Palmer?

  If you did one, do you think, do you know what you want to talk about?

• 3:59Speaker 01

  Oh, I don't, you know, the reason I've never done one, I don't know how I can get it all in like, isn't that 14 minutes? Yours was like 12 minutes and something.

• 4:07Keke Palmer?

  Yes, 12 minutes. Shout out to Chi. I mean, they put you with great coaches.

• 4:11Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 4:11Keke Palmer?

  She was with me along the process. I didn't know how I was going to arrive at where I arrived. But through the conversations, I started, slowly started writing, and then I had to scrap a couple of them. I had maybe like two or three speeches before I got to that one.

• 4:24Speaker 01

  Really?

• 4:24Keke Palmer?

  Yeah.

• 4:25Speaker 01

  And, and, and are you just talking? It sounds like it's just coming out of your head. You're not reading from a prompter?

• 4:29Keke Palmer?

  No.

• 4:30Speaker 01

  Wow, that was beautifully done.

• 4:32Keke Palmer?

  Thank you so much.

• 4:33Speaker 01

  Beautifully done, beautifully done.

• 4:34Keke Palmer?

  Thank you. Some people do go up there with paper, but they really prefer you to know the whole bit.

• 4:39Speaker 01

  Really?

• 4:39Keke Palmer?

  Yeah, they do. Yeah.

• 4:41Speaker 01

  Oh, well, I do know the whole bit, but I just, I don't know how to do it in 14 minutes. But I could, I guess I could.

• 4:45Keke Palmer?

  Yes, without a doubt. Well, you know, I always do a pre-show pull-up with my guests, but I made yours specially for you, of course.

• 4:51Speaker 01

  Okay, let's see what it is.

• 4:53Keke Palmer?

  Okay, favorite thing you're obsessed with right now?

• 4:56Speaker 01

  Favorite thing I'm obsessed with right now is actually doing my podcast. I love it because it's, it's just like this. It's so intimate. You know, I've done the talking thing forever and ever. But I love the intimacy of being one-on-one and having a conversation with people that you really are motivated to talk to, because just like you, it's so fun. You talk to who you want to talk to.

• 5:20Keke Palmer?

  And it is not a time limit. Like, I think often with daytime talk, you know, it's like five minutes, eight minutes. You cannot say much in that quick time.

• 5:28Speaker 01

  I mean, and the thing that I was always so terrible at is cutting to commercial break. I was always, always, always over.

• 5:35Keke Palmer?

  Yeah.

• 5:35Speaker 01

  And so hard to interrupt somebody, especially if you're doing something really serious. You know, excuse me, I gotta take a commercial break. You know? So, uh, that was always, that was always challenging.

• 5:44Keke Palmer?

  Yeah.

• 5:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:45Keke Palmer?

  Yeah. Okay. Favorite place in the world?

• 5:49Speaker 01

  Uh, Italy.

• 5:50Keke Palmer?

  Really?

• 5:51Speaker 01

  Anyplace in Italy.

• 5:52Keke Palmer?

  Tell me about Italy. I've never, have I been to Italy? I've been to Italy once. I don't think I've done enough traveling. So what makes Italy so special?

• 5:59Speaker 01

  The food, the people.

• 6:01Keke Palmer?

  That I always do.

• 6:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, the food and the people and the sense of family camaraderie, community. I like the idea of like walking down a cobblestone little street and going to get your bread at the end of the.

• 6:15Keke Palmer?

  Come on, that meme when you said, I love bread.

• 6:17Speaker 01

  I love the bread. I still love bread and I still love bread.

• 6:22Keke Palmer?

  That is too good.

• 6:24Speaker 01

  So I, I, I love, that's one of my favorite places in the world to be. But I will actually tell you this. I have created such a beautiful blessed life for myself that it's hard to get me to leave the front gate. I mean, really, many times.

• 6:42Keke Palmer?

  That means the home is a sanctuary.

• 6:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, my home is a sanctuary.

• 6:45Keke Palmer?

  Oh, my gosh, I love that for you.

• 6:47Speaker 01

  Every time I look out in my backyard, I say, I understand what Glinda the Good Witch meant when she said, "Look no further than your own backyard." Yes.

• 6:57Keke Palmer?

  Now, that is really something special.

• 6:59Speaker 01

  It is very special.

• 7:00Keke Palmer?

  Oh, my gosh, I love that so much. Please invite me sometime.

• 7:02Speaker 01

  Well, you will love my backyard. You will love my backyard. Yes, yes, yes.

• 7:06Keke Palmer?

  Okay, favorite guest who surprised you? Now, this could be somebody that's on your current podcast or it could be somebody from the past or maybe one of both.

• 7:14Speaker 01

  Favorite guest who surprised me recently was, was a guy named Allen Levi, who's written this book called Theo of Golden. Lots of people are reading it. I know you've read it. And here's the thing, that guy who wrote the book, Allen Levi, is really Theo of Golden. So Theo of Golden is this guy who comes into a town. He goes to a coffee shop. He sees all these pictures on the wall that have been drawn by a local artist. And then he decides to take each picture, buy it, and then meet with each person. And the whole idea is that everybody has a special life story and that to be able to look at people's lives. So this guy who came on my show, Allen Levi, best guest I've ever had. And I've had some guests. I've literally talked to over thirty-five hundred people, one-on-one, okay?

• 7:59Keke Palmer?

  Wow.

• 8:00Speaker 01

  Okay. And that's why when I'm talking to my. Girls, all these girls I mentor from South Africa, I go, "You ought to listen to me, because I have had thirty, thirty-five hundred conversations." So, anyway. Alan Levi, when he was done, went and introduced himself to every crew member. Not just introduced himself to every crew member, but wanted to hear every crew member's story, which you know takes up a lot of time. And every single guest that we had that was asking him a question, he had a question for them. So, his interest in other people, I, I love it when people show kindness, real, real goodness toward other people. That's number one. Favorite surprise guest, okay? The other was, honey,

• 8:43Speaker 01

  I think it was nineties or something, nineteen ninety something. There was a show called The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

• 8:49Keke Palmer?

  Oh, my gosh, come on. You're gonna make it after all.

• 8:53Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 8:56Speaker 01

  And throwing up the hat.

• 8:57Keke Palmer?

  So good.

• 8:58Speaker 01

  I had done that whole little skit where I went out and I put on the hat and the clothes and the han, han, and the Mary and throwing it up the thing. And so, we were doing this show on Mary memories, on all of us who loved Mary. And I'm talking about Mary Tyler Moore, and out walks Mary Tyler Moore.

• 9:15Keke Palmer?

  I think I've seen.

• 9:16Speaker 01

  Out walks Mary Tyler Moore.

• 9:19Keke Palmer?

  Too much.

• 9:20Speaker 01

  Too much. And you know what? I lost it.

• 9:23Keke Palmer?

  Yes.

• 9:23Speaker 01

  I lost it. I lost it. I lost everything. I went into the headache ugly cry.

• 9:30Keke Palmer?

  Yes.

• 9:31Speaker 01

  You know, you ugly cry, and then you ugly cry so much, now you have a headache, and now your nose is running and the whole thing.

• 9:35Keke Palmer?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 9:36Speaker 01

  And I said to my producers after that, "That's it. I can never be surprised again."

• 9:42Keke Palmer?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 9:42Speaker 01

  Never, never. And not until the last show, which, you know, we did from the United Center, where there were all these surprises, including Beyonce, that they, they were like, "Please, please, please, we just need to be able to surprise you." Because I lost such control during that show. I like wanted to pee on myself, I was like, nose was running, all the things.

• 10:02Keke Palmer?

  Oh, but that's hilarious.

• 10:03Speaker 01

  With Mary Tyler Moore, and I was like, "Do you understand what this mean to me?" And she was like, "I kinda do, I think I do." So, I, you know why?

• 10:11Keke Palmer?

  She said, "I think I do."

• 10:12Speaker 01

  I think I do, because when I was growing, when I was first started in news, Mary was it. There was no dating on Saturday night. I would watch The Mary Tyler Moore Show, wash my hair, roller set, under the dryer, with the blow dryer, with the whole thing, with the rollers, and, uh... Then followed by The Bob Newhart Show.

• 10:33Keke Palmer?

  Oh my gosh.

• 10:34Speaker 01

  That was my routine, Mary. So getting surprised by Mary.

• 10:37Keke Palmer?

  Yeah, that is, that's, it's something so special about people being in their home with you.

• 10:41Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 10:41Keke Palmer?

  You know, I'm sure you know it, obviously personally, because people have that same, we all have that same affinity for you, so.

• 10:46Speaker 01

  But no, but listen to this. This is, this is also, you never know who you've inspired. Actually, I run into people all the time to say, "You inspired me." I ran into a girl in the bathroom yesterday who said, "I'm a journalist because of you." And I went, "That makes me so proud." But I, part of the reason I am who I am is because I was watching The Mary Tyler Moore Show. And at the end of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, remember this, there's a little M T M, and a little cat that comes out and goes meow. And it was her own production company, M T M. It's the first time that I realized, oh, you could own yourself. You could own your product. You could own what you're putting out into the world.

• 11:26Speaker 01

  And M T M is what gave me the vision to believe that could happen. And I remember when I started in Chicago, and I said to one of the, you know, suits, I said, you know, "One of the things I want is to one day become a mogul." And the next day, he was like, "How dare you use that language? How dare you say that?" Yes, that's what he said to me in 1983. How dare you use, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I wanted to be, I want to be a mogul like Mary Tyler.

• 11:57Keke Palmer?

  Why do you think that he said that? Why do you?

• 11:59Speaker 01

  He said it was so arrogant and it was so, yeah, yeah, it was like so full of myself to think that I could become a mogul.

• 12:06Keke Palmer?

  Our greatest fear is not that we're inadequate. Our greatest fear is that we're powerful beyond measure.

• 12:10Speaker 01

  Okay, come on, Mary Ann Williamson, quote to me.

• 12:13Keke Palmer?

  That was so good.

• 12:14Speaker 01

  Quote to me, quote to me.

• 12:15Keke Palmer?

  Girl, when I saw you had your own frozen food product.

• 12:19Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 12:20Keke Palmer?

  When I saw you had your own network, it was that same thing. I said, "This is next level."

• 12:26Speaker 01

  Well.

• 12:27Keke Palmer?

  What Oprah Winfrey is doing.

• 12:27Speaker 01

  Let me just tell you, owning that show was the transition into me owning myself in so many ways. And that came about because I had nothing I wanted more in the. This world than being in the color purple.

• 12:42Keke Palmer?

  Yeah.

• 12:42Speaker 01

  And when I went away to do the color purple, my bosses at the time said, you know, you only have two weeks vacation and I needed two months. And I ended up giving all of my vacation for the entire contract. If you would just let me finish this movie, I said. This is 1985. If you just let me finish this movie, I'll give up all of my vacation, all of my vacation. And then, when it came time to renew that contract, my lawyer said, you never want to be in a position where you have to give up everything in order to sacrifice to do what you really want to do. What if you owned part of the show? This was Jeff Jacobs who said this to me.

• 13:19Keke Palmer?

  Shout out to Jeff Jacobs.

• 13:20Speaker 01

  Shout out to Jeff Jacobs who said, what if you owned yourself? It means you'd have to take the risk yourself. That maybe it wouldn't do as well, but you don't have to take a salary. You would get whatever the show was going to make.

• 13:31Keke Palmer?

  And this is like advertising.

• 13:33Speaker 01

  This is when we went syndicating. Yeah, when we were syndicating. And I said, sure, because I believed in myself. And that is the reason why I am where I am. Because I believed that ownership was the way for me. And you know what? At the time, you know, local stations couldn't even syndicate you. So they, nobody, nobody believed that the Oprah show was going to be as big as it was. And the reason why I got the greatest percentage, the percentage that I did, is because none of those guys thought it was going to be that successful. If they thought it was that successful, they would have never given me 50%.

• 14:06Keke Palmer?

  Did you feel that sacrifice in the immediate meaning?

• 14:10Speaker 01

  No.

• 14:10Keke Palmer?

  When you took, oh, so you, it felt all the same, essentially.

• 14:12Speaker 01

  It felt all the same to me. It felt like, I knew that the show would be successful because it was successful in Chicago. And Chicago was, I thought.

• 14:23Keke Palmer?

  The Mecca.

• 14:24Speaker 01

  Yes. It, it represented the country.

• 14:26Keke Palmer?

  For sure.

• 14:27Speaker 01

  It wasn't like it was New York.

• 14:28Keke Palmer?

  Yes.

• 14:28Speaker 01

  East Coast thinking or West Coast thinking. I thought, this is America. And if Chicago loves it, Rhode Island will love it. Memphis will love it. Arkansas is going to love it.

• 14:39Keke Palmer?

  Come on, Arkansas!

• 14:39Speaker 01

  Nashville is going to love it too. Everybody's going to love it because Chicago loves it. And I could watch the faces of those women every day. And I realized that what we're saying, what we're doing here is connecting to them in a way. That, that, what they're feeling is what I'm feeling. What they're feeling is what everybody else is feeling. And so I, I, I never believed that it would not work.

• 14:59Keke Palmer?

  Oh, I can't wait to get into more of that with you. Because I'm, I mean, it's so incredible.

• 15:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:03Keke Palmer?

  What you've been able to do. Favorite guilty pleasure?

• 15:06Speaker 01

  Oh, my favorite guilty pleasure.

• 15:10Keke Palmer?

  Guilty pleasure?

• 15:11Speaker 01

  Is um, is, is, is, is doing absolutely nothing.

• 15:15Keke Palmer?

  Okay.

• 15:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, when the day has gone and I say, what have I accomplished? Not one damn thing. That's my favorite guilty pleasure.

• 15:22Keke Palmer?

  Count potato.

• 15:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:24Keke Palmer?

  It's everything.

• 15:24Speaker 01

  What have I done? But no.

• 15:26Keke Palmer?

  What have I done?

• 15:26Speaker 01

  The perfect day for me, people will be so shocked because my friend Gail is, I, I realize the older we get, I'm saying, I don't know how we've remained friends for 50 years because we're so opposite.

• 15:39Keke Palmer?

  Oh.

• 15:39Speaker 01

  She is right now on her way to the Obama event and she will, did something last night and did something the night before.

• 15:47Keke Palmer?

  She do be outside.

• 15:48Speaker 01

  She do be outside.

• 15:49Keke Palmer?

  I love that about girl. I love that. I see her out. I'm like, girl.

• 15:53Speaker 01

  Whoa, my gosh. And I am, and she'll call me sometimes and say, what are you, what are you doing, sitting with your thoughts? And I go, exactly. That's exactly what I'm doing.

• 16:01Keke Palmer?

  Yes.

• 16:01Speaker 01

  Sitting with my thoughts. So my perfect day is it's raining, there's some fog.

• 16:07Keke Palmer?

  Oh.

• 16:07Speaker 01

  You can hear the rain on the roof because I grew up in a, in, in, in Mississippi with a tin roof. So you could hear the rain falling on the roof and, you know, sounded like a thunderstorm every time it sprinkled. And so the feeling of rain on the roof is a comforting thing to me. And so having a fireplace, having a dog and reading a book and having another book after that to read. So you have like a little stack. That's my favorite. But I know that that's not fun for most people. Okay?

• 16:36Keke Palmer?

  That's lovely to me.

• 16:37Speaker 01

  But it's not fun for most people. And Gail's like, uh, good.

• 16:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:42Keke Palmer?

  She really goes, okay, favorite thing money can't buy?

• 16:47Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh. I would have to say, for me, it's the peace of mind.

• 16:56Speaker 01

  And satisfaction that has come from living a life well-lived. It's the peace of mind and satisfaction. You know, when I first started out, it was hard. I have, you know, I know you've had this too. Every relative comes out of the closet. You've got cousins you didn't know and you got everybody wanting and demanding of your time and your money. And I didn't know how to say no. I didn't know how to manage all of that in the beginning. And I had really strong mentors. I had the best.

• 17:28Keke Palmer?

  Who were your mentors?

• 17:29Speaker 01

  I had Maya Angelou. I had Sidney Poitier. I had Quincy Jones.

• 17:35Keke Palmer?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 17:36Speaker 01

  I had Coretta Scott King. I, those were my mentors. So when something would go wrong, I would call one or the other of those people and say, Maya and Sidney more so than anybody else. But I would have to say. Oprah. Yeah. What did you need? Yeah.

• 17:52Keke Palmer?

  Yes.

• 17:53Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 17:54Keke Palmer?

  Being on the phone with Maya Angelou sounds.

• 17:56Speaker 01

  All the time, all the time. And I remember being on this, and at the time, the tabloids were just wrecking me all the time. I was on the tabloids every week for either being too fat. She ate too much. She ate a whole pie. She done, you know, just making up lies about me all the time. Or is she getting married? Why he won't marry her? Now they split up. Now, so there were two stories. There were the, will she get married? Will she not get married? Why hasn't she gotten married? And overweight. That they, for twenty freaking years, yeah, wore me out with it. And many times I would get upset about it and I would call Maya and Maya would say, I remember being in the bathroom, I can't even remember what it was, but toilet seat down,

• 18:38Speaker 01

  sitting in the toilet in the bathroom, calling Maya and I was crying and she was like, stop it, stop it now. And I was like, but you don't understand what I'm saying is just stop it, stop it now. That was her favorite phrase. And I'd say, well, why should I? And she said, I want you to say thank you. In the middle of me crying, she said, thank you because whatever it is you're going through, I don't even want to know what it is right now. I want you to know God has already put a rainbow in the cloud for you. The rainbow is coming. So the cloud that you're in right now, you just gotta wait to get to the other side where the rainbow is and say, say, "Thank you, because I know the rainbow is coming." And so that has helped me through many a thing. When you're in the middle of the crisis, you just say,

• 19:23Speaker 01

  "All right, I know there's another side to it." So I had, I mean, I had some of the best teachers. I had just fantastic teachers. So my favorite thing is, you know, I get a lot of, a lot of love from the world and I get a lot of craziness from the world. Yeah. I mean, the online thing is crazy.

• 19:43Keke Palmer?

  Well, I mean, you had so, when you were bringing up the tabloid stuff, it was making me think about online because

• 19:48Speaker 01

  Now, now that's a new tablet.

• 19:49Keke Palmer?

  It's the same kind of thing.

• 19:50Speaker 01

  It's a new, it's a new thing. But you can say anything. So everybody has the power to say anything about you. And, and the thing that's always been the hardest for me is people saying things that were untrue. And, I mean, I, I, you know, the tabloids actually prepared me

• 20:03Keke Palmer?

  Yes.

• 20:03Speaker 01

  for all the untruths that I live with, with, with now, online. But this is the thing. Maya used to say this to me and I say this to everybody who's listening. And you have had some grace in your life. Maya used to say, "Baby, those people can't hold the candle to the light that God already has shining on your face. So look at the light that God has shining on your face and stop worrying about those people." Because those people who are sitting online saying things about me that are not true, those people who, she used to say this all the time in the tabloids, "They don't even know you." They don't, you don't even know you. You're just, you're just a photograph and a story to them.

• 20:44Keke Palmer?

  Yes.

• 20:44Speaker 01

  She would say

• 20:45Keke Palmer?

  An avatar.

• 20:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, they don't, they don't know your heart. They don't know anything about you. So those people who are dragging you, ragging on you, whatever. Cannot hold a candle to the light God always, always, already has shining on your face. And it reminds me of, you know, one of my favorite things to do now, that I got two new knees, starting 2021.

• 21:05Keke Palmer?

  Oh, I love that.

• 21:06Speaker 01

  One of my favorite thing to do is to hike. One of my favorite thing to do is to hike.

• 21:09Keke Palmer?

  Yes, new knees.

• 21:10Speaker 01

  Yes, yes, new knees.

• 21:11Keke Palmer?

  Oh, yes.

• 21:12Speaker 01

  The reason why I love hiking is because it's such a great metaphor for life. And the higher the mountain, the better the hike for me. And the reason is, you don't look at how far you have to go. If you start out looking at how far you have to go, you will be thwarted. You will feel like, oh, how am I gonna get up there? But every 10 minutes or so, every, every like couple thousand steps, turn around and look at how far you've come. And you can't believe it. Before you know it, you're halfway there. And before you know it, you're, you're, you're three quarters away there. Before you know it, you look back and you go, I can't believe I came all that way.

• 21:54Speaker 01

  And if you came all that way, you can get to the top. And the same thing is true for life. If you, wherever you are right now, and you're listening to us, you're listening to Lauren, Kiana, and I speak.

• 22:06Keke Palmer?

  This is so important, what you're saying.

• 22:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, if you, if you just stop and look at how far you have already come. How you weren't even supposed to be where you are right now. Nobody, you didn't even think you could make it through some things, but you did. So, take the time to stop and turn around and look, wow.

• 22:26Keke Palmer?

  That's gra, in my mind, that's gratitude, the practice of gratitude.

• 22:30Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, well, that is my spiritual practice.

• 22:31Keke Palmer?

  Yes, and what, what, what are the things in the interim? You know, because I'm hearing you saying, there's always a mountain on the rainbow. But even if I'm talking to you right now and dealing with the own things that I have going on in my life, or people that are listening, that is a very hard thing to always hold on to. Because you don't know when it's coming.

• 22:49Speaker 01

  But it's coming. Which faith is knowing that it is coming. This is a thing that I wish I could, I should, I should teach a class, I really should. First of all, we are all ordering up our lives all the time. And you are in co-creation with the main creator.

• 23:04Keke Palmer?

  Yes, right.

• 23:05Speaker 01

  And you are doing that by the way you think. So, anything.

• 23:09Speaker 01

  That is happening in your life right now, that's going on in your life. If you look at, there's a wonderful line in A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle.

• 23:17Keke Palmer?

  Girl.

• 23:17Speaker 01

  Girl.

• 23:18Keke Palmer?

  You the reason why I read that book.

• 23:20Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 23:20Keke Palmer?

  It almost made me have a brain injury, but I held on.

• 23:22Speaker 01

  Really?

• 23:23Keke Palmer?

  And it changed my life.

• 23:24Speaker 01

  Isn't it life changing?

• 23:26Keke Palmer?

  What a relief it is to know that the voice inside my head is not me.

• 23:30Speaker 01

  Yes. That's one of many.

• 23:33Keke Palmer?

  I said, well, who the hell is it?

• 23:33Speaker 01

  Who in the hell is it, right? Yeah.

• 23:36Keke Palmer?

  But then you're like, well, I'm the one observing it.

• 23:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. That is a big thing.

• 23:41Keke Palmer?

  It's huge.

• 23:42Speaker 01

  Oh, you're there, you're there.

• 23:43Keke Palmer?

  That's you.

• 23:44Speaker 01

  That's it, that's it.

• 23:45Keke Palmer?

  You put me on to that.

• 23:46Speaker 01

  I mean, I'm telling you, when you get that, you have like graduated, you have like graduated. So, the other important thing that he said that is so relevant to whatever situation you're going through is, life will give you the exact experience you need for the elevation of your consciousness, which is why we're all here.

• 24:08Keke Palmer?

  Yeah.

• 24:09Speaker 01

  Life is gonna give you exactly what you need at any given time to grow you up. That's really what he's saying. The elevation of your consciousness is just for you getting, becoming who you're supposed to be.

• 24:20Keke Palmer?

  Mm-hmm.

• 24:20Speaker 01

  So, life is gonna give you the exact experience you need. And how do you know that's the experience you need? Because it's the experience you're having right now. So, whatever is going on, you just look at it and you say, okay, what you trying to teach me? What is it I'm not getting? What is it I need to know? Why does this keep happening? Why does this keep showing up, wearing a different pair of pants? Why do I always end up in this situation? You're supposed to truly ask that, not from a, why is this always happening to me? But really, what am I supposed to get that I'm not getting? And how do I grow from this moment? What is it here to teach me about myself?

• 24:58Keke Palmer?

  How do you then maintain an embodied experience in life? As opposed to always coming from this meaning-making thing? Because that can be its own tyrant to you. You get what I mean? Where it's like, I find myself doing that all the time. Where it's like, everything's meaning, everything's a lesson. But then I'm detached from the experience of what's happening to me. Because I'm so quick to find the lesson in it.

• 25:22Speaker 01

  What is the real thing in it?

• 25:23Keke Palmer?

  Yeah.

• 25:24Speaker 01

  Well, this is the thing. Sometimes you're just having a good time. Okay?

• 25:28Keke Palmer?

  Mm-hmm.

• 25:29Speaker 01

  Because one of the reasons why the Oprah Show for 25 years was the number one show.

• 25:36Speaker 01

  Um, in spite of, you know, all the competition and all of the shows that came after us, I never looked at what the other people were doing because I was very much on point with what I knew I needed to do. And one of the things that changed that show was another book called Seed of the Soul by Gary Zukav that I read in 1989. And it shifted everything for me because in that book he talks about intention. That no matter what you're doing in life, that there is the law of cause and effect. Everybody's listening to us right now. You believe in the law of karma, which is the same as the law of cause and effect. But before there's a cause, there's an intention.

• 26:20Speaker 01

  And that intention is going to always determine the effect. And so I sat down with my producers and I said, I explained this principle and I said, "We're not going to do just shows anymore. We're going to do shows with intention and we're going to do shows in a way that you have to tell me at the top of the, the, the, the idea what the intention is." And they're like, "What? What the hell?" And I have to align with that intention. And if I'm not aligned with that intention, if I'm not right there, I have to find some truth in it in order to sit in this chair.

• 26:53Keke Palmer?

  Yeah.

• 26:53Speaker 01

  Right? So I can't just be up there talking, talking, talking about things I don't want to, that, that have no relevance or no grounding for myself. So I just have to find one thread that I can connect to so that I can say, "Okay, I believe in that. I can talk about that." And people can feel my truth. And that's what changed the show. That's why we were number one for 25 years because it was intentionally done. We talked about why do we want to do it? What do we want to get out of it? You know, and be, and for every interview I did that.

• 27:22Keke Palmer?

  It's interesting when you're talking about this because I think about what we're, what journalism is now and what it was then. I think about Barbara Walters. I think about Diane Sora. I think about the Oprah Winfrey Show. The relationship to making things comfortable and relaxed, but still pushing and having the ability to get people to speak to what is real, I feel like, I don't want to say that sometimes it's lost, but the relationship that our current audience has to that kind of journalism seems to have changed.

• 27:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 27:50Keke Palmer?

  I'm curious of, you know, what you think that is and if you think it should come back.

• 27:55Speaker 01

  Well, I think that people now are interested in a lot of surface things, I think, you know, but ultimately, this is what I know in the soul of myself, is that people have not changed, even though it looks like our value system and the culture has changed and the politics has changed. But people still, I think, want goodness in their lives and people want to be guided by a set of values and principles that open their heart to, to doing well in the world. They, they, they, people want to succeed and they want to be happy. This is what I learned from the Oprah Show, is that everybody wants the same thing. You want to know that you matter and you want to be able to offer that to other people.

• 28:36Speaker 01

  And so even though we live in this culture where everything is quick and fast and this and tiki-taki, taka-taka, taka-taka, everybody is, you know, doing a lot of surface things, people really do want meaning in their life. They long to matter and they long to know that whatever you're doing in life is giving you some purpose in the world. That's what I, I truly believe.

• 28:59Keke Palmer?

  So many people have different experiences with you. Some, maybe from movies, obviously from Oprah Winfrey Show. Sometimes it's clips and now obviously your podcast. But I'm curious, what is for you the definition of living your best life now? What does it look like?

• 29:15Speaker 01

  Well, it looks like freedom. It looks like being able to make the choices that are based on what you, what do you really want, which I think is the most important question, you know? I think when you're not free, Not completely free. You can't make decisions based upon what you want. You have to do what you, this is what I say to my girls. Who, you know, graduating from college and starting their first jobs and they're talking to me about, you know, work-life balance at this point, I go, "You ain't had no work-life balance, twenty-two, twenty-three."

• 29:43Keke Palmer?

  That's tearing us up, by the way. We're all trying to look for the balance, it ain't there.

• 29:47Speaker 01

  No, no, no, no, no.

• 29:48Keke Palmer?

  It ain't there, it's tearing us up.

• 29:49Speaker 01

  It's not there, it's not there, you're not supposed to have it. You, you, you, you're supposed to lay it in, lay in the work. And so, I believe that, for me, it's getting to this point in my life where my choices are based, that come truly from, you know, the purest part of myself. I only do what I want to do. And I've earned the right to do that. Because there was lots of times I had to do what I had to do. You have to do what you have to, have to do what you need to do, until you can do what you want to do. You can't, on these kids today, a lot of people think, "Oh, I just want to do what I want to do." You gotta work to be able to do what you want to do.

• 30:29Keke Palmer?

  But how do you know when it's, when it's over? Because, what do you, when you say free, when it's over. How do you define it? And what I'm saying, when it's over, is, what ends up happening, and I talked about this in the TED Talk, is, you, you, you, you working so hard to get free and it's like, you might be already there. So how do you know what freedom is to you? And when it's time to lay back? Because I feel like that was really, I mean, my nervous system is like, she's like,

• 30:59Keke Palmer?

  "My nervous system is screaming to me, let me go." She don't know, she don't know how to release them. One, two, three, release them.

• 31:07Speaker 01

  Okay, have you been able to answer the question of what? Okay, so this is so interesting. Oh, we could talk all day about this.

• 31:13Keke Palmer?

  Girl.

• 31:14Speaker 01

  Girl. Do you know that when I was doing The Color Purple, I wrote in my journal, I've had, kept a journal since.

• 31:22Keke Palmer?

  Me too.

• 31:22Speaker 01

  Yes, so, and I wrote in my journal then, "My goal is to, one of the things I really want is a beautiful home, surrounded by beautiful things, surrounded by a life of people who respect me and I respect and hold and regard." I, I wrote that in 1985 while I was sitting in a tree in Color Purple waiting on, on, on my time to go to set. And... That has been fulfilled for me in just like layers and layers and multitudes of ways. But I've always been clear about what I really wanted and what was gonna give me peace. Do you know the answer to that question? That's what you wanna say to yourself and to everybody who's listening and watching.

• 32:06Speaker 01

  What do you really want? And is what you want, what you want? Or is what you want, what you always thought you were supposed to want?

• 32:18Keke Palmer?

  Well, this brings me to the other thing that I wanted to ask you about.

• 32:20Speaker 01

  Okay, okay. Is this what you always thought you wanted?

• 32:24Keke Palmer?

  How do you know? So this is the thing, and I ask it specifically about love. I often am like, I need me a Stedman. Now, I don't know nothing about you and Stedman's actual relationship. But what I'm curious of is what you found? How much did it differ from what you thought you wanted?

• 32:40Speaker 01

  Oh, let me just tell you. I paid a price to get there because I was a fool for many years.

• 32:46Keke Palmer?

  Now, that's tea, boo.

• 32:47Speaker 01

  I went through some man troubles in my twenties, okay?

• 32:58Keke Palmer?

  I am, by every definition, a lot. My outfits are a moment. My reactions are gank. I've been called dramatic in three different group chats this week alone. And every single time, I said, correct. That's just who I am. And honestly, I've made peace with it. But somewhere along the way, I learned there's a difference between extra where it counts and extra where it's just showing off. And my old cleaning products were absolutely showing off and doing more to cover up than to actually clean. Girl, sit down. So I switched to Seventh Generation. Bio-based cleaning power that handles the job without the theatrics. Plus, no dyes, artificial fragrances, or bottles full of ingredients auditioning for a part they didn't get.

• 33:43Keke Palmer?

  It just works. And it doesn't need to announce itself while it's doing it. Seventh Generation provides a powerful clean without anything extra. So if you already bring the extra to the function, make the switch today to Seventh Generation. A powerful clean without anything extra.

• 34:02Keke Palmer?

  We are at the peak right now. This is it. July is the absolute top of summer. The most committed, most alive, most everything month of the entire year. The days are long, the energy is high, and everyone you love is finally available at the same time. This is the month summer delivers on everything it promised. Back in January, when you were cold and optimistic. Okay, okay, so my friends and I found this home on Airbnb in Turks and Caicos. Perfect for a little couple's getaway. Beachfront, palm trees, private, secluded. The kind of place where you look around and genuinely cannot see another soul and you think, oh, it's just us. The whole world disappeared and all that was left was our little group on this beach,

• 34:47Keke Palmer?

  like we had been dropped there by the universe specifically. Somebody's situationship got on the grill and did not disappoint. He was clearly prepared because he brought the sandals and everything. And moments like that, moments where everyone gathers around, food that somebody actually cooked outside with the ocean right there. It was the kind of trip you stop trying to document because you're too busy enjoying it. We found that stay on Airbnb and it set the bar for every couple's trip I take for the rest of my life. This is what peak summer can feel like, when the space is right. Find a home on Airbnb this summer and meet the moment. Peak summer is now waiting for you to get ready.

• 35:29Speaker 01

  There was a guy whose bumper I was holding on to at one point.

• 35:33Keke Palmer?

  Literally?

• 35:34Speaker 01

  Literally, holding on to the bumper of his car.

• 35:36Keke Palmer?

  No!

• 35:37Speaker 01

  Datsun Z.

• 35:38Keke Palmer?

  No, I love you!

• 35:39Speaker 01

  Datsun Z, Datsun Z. He pulls off and I like fall and my knees all in the gravel and the whole thing and all the department is looking at you and you're like...

• 35:49Speaker 01

  It's alright? Yeah, I know, I've been there.

• 35:52Keke Palmer?

  This is... so, so, so...

• 35:54Speaker 01

  And so that guy, that guy had said to me, "The problem with you, baby doll, is that you think you're special. The problem with you, baby doll, is you think you're special." And I'm like, "No, I'm not. I don't think I'm special. No, I don't, no, I don't." And he was leaving and had slammed the door and I ran after him and I'm holding on to the bumper of the Datsun Z. Yeah, I think I was 23, 24 then.

• 36:17Keke Palmer?

  When...

• 36:19Speaker 01

  So I learned, I learned that thing.

• 36:20Keke Palmer?

  What cha- what was the thing that changed? What was the thing that stopped, whatever this pattern was?

• 36:26Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 36:26Keke Palmer?

  What changed in you?

• 36:27Speaker 01

  Well, I realized that I was no different than the women that I had grown up with, and I said I would never be that way. So I grew up with, my mother's first cousin, Alice, had, unfortunately, who's one of my abusers, actually, was a guy that beat her. And she, I remember he knocked her down the stairs, and she had to go to the hospital, broke one of her legs, broke an arm, and she took him back. And I always said, "I will never, ever, ever be that woman." And when I was holding on to the bumper of the Natsen Z, I said, "Oh, I wasn't hit, but I've become that woman." I saw myself. I saw myself. I saw myself, I saw my history, I saw the history of women in my family

• 37:13Speaker 01

  who'd allowed themselves to sacrifice their own power to men. And I said, "I'm gonna turn that around." And so, I started attracting to myself, a different kind of person.

• 37:25Keke Palmer?

  What actions brought that on? Once that mental shift happened, what were the things that you can remember that became different about what you were attracted to?

• 37:34Speaker 01

  Okay, so, I was always attracted to somebody who was, in one way or another, trying to tell me I wasn't good enough. And so, when I, that's why I'm saying that anytime you think it's about the other person, that person is showing up to show you who you are. So if you're in a relationship where you're taking a lot of stuff, it's really not about that person. It's about, what is it about you that doesn't have the value for yourself that you're willing to let yourself be treated that way? It's not about him. So now, I thank him. I thank him. I realized that all of the bad relationships were my best teachers. My best teachers.

• 38:19Speaker 01

  So if you're in a bad relationship, or you were somebody that's not loving you the way you want to be loved or seeing you the way you want to be seen, that's not on them. That's on you. That's on you. And the reason it keeps showing up wearing a different pair of pants is because God, the universe, the life force, is trying to get you to see it. And how bad does it have to get for you to see it? That's why it's happening.

• 38:41Keke Palmer?

  This ties back to also when you just said the quote of, you know, when you were on the back of the bumper and, and uh, he's saying, um, you know, you just think you're special. No, I'm not. No, I'm not. This makes me just think about the conversation around shame. Because I think a lot of times when we hear that as, as people, this concept of value or esteem. It's like, well, actually I like myself. I like myself. I think I'm this. I think I'm that. But sometimes the shame is actually coded with this thing of like, I like, I think I'm so awesome that I'm embarrassed by it.

• 39:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:14Keke Palmer?

  And I feel like, you get what I mean by this?

• 39:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, I do get what you mean by, I, because, you know, to be with somebody who doesn't see your true value and worth and who's trying to make you feel like, I mean, I was just a little, I was a local television reporter, which is in that market, you are the big deal in that market, you know? But, you know, and people know you and you go to the store and people know who you are. So it's like you're a little fish in, in, or a big fish in a little pond. And he was like, oh, you think you something because you're on the news, that kind of thing. And I'm like, no, I don't, no, I don't, no, I don't. And so I was out to try to, in, in my early twenties, trying to make the other person, that person believe that I'm just like everybody else. Boom. That's it.

• 40:00Keke Palmer?

  That, that is dangerous.

• 40:03Speaker 01

  That is dangerous.

• 40:04Keke Palmer?

  Because what's so funny is within this same conversation, you had the situation, clearly there was such great growth there because you had the same conversation with the man and you said, I, I want to be a mogul.

• 40:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:14Keke Palmer?

  So you, at this point, it was like, I know I'm special.

• 40:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:17Keke Palmer?

  And I know what I can achieve.

• 40:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:19Keke Palmer?

  What, how, you get, I mean, that's the

• 40:21Speaker 01

  How did I get to that?

• 40:22Keke Palmer?

  Owning.

• 40:22Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah.

• 40:23Keke Palmer?

  Owning that I'm [BLEEP] over with it. You know? Because that's what people got to get to because I, we're all, we all are special. I truly believe this.

• 40:32Speaker 01

  Oh, I truly believe it too.

• 40:33Keke Palmer?

  I truly believe this, but we're, it's literally like that Marianne Williamson quote.

• 40:37Speaker 01

  Well, but yes, but here's the thing, it's those years, it's the years of the holding on to the bumper instead of feeling what a jerk he was. Um, I was, I was blaming myself for it. Like, what could I have done differently? And so I was like, I would say around twenty six, twenty seven, I came out of it. Twenty eight, I started doing my local talk show. Thirty, I moved to Chicago. By thirty, I was solidly into this is what I want and this is what I want to achieve for myself.

• 41:05Keke Palmer?

  Yeah.

• 41:06Speaker 01

  But it took me some growing to get there. And, and you know what? If you grew up in an environment, and I say this all the time, because one of the reasons why I feel so solidly grounded in life and so wise is that I have been obedient to the call of my life and I have paid attention. I'm not just, I'm not just willy nilly. I'm not a part of the walking dead going through life. I'm paying attention to everything and I'm learning from every experience. And one of the reasons why I've been so gifted with blessings is because I had experience after experience after experience after experience to learn from on the show. I wasn't just doing a show. I was absorbed into what it means to create this kind of human behavior and how, how

• 41:51Speaker 01

  do I avoid that? I don't want, you know what? And I think for a lot of people who watch, watch the show and also now the podcast is like, oh, I ain't that crazy. I can learn from other people's lessons. So I learned a lot from other people's lessons.

• 42:03Keke Palmer?

  How has your curiosity evolved? Because like you said, thirty five hundred people plus.

• 42:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:08Keke Palmer?

  Where does the, where do you find the desire or the urgent? I mean, look, human beings are so exciting and unique, so I get that. But what drives this next chapter of what you want to talk about?

• 42:19Speaker 01

  Because I am continually interested in the rising of the human experience, of how we meet the rising of our lives. I think that we, as human beings, have been given this planet. My God, you look at God's like, when are y'all gonna get it together?

• 42:35Keke Palmer?

  Okay.

• 42:36Speaker 01

  Over there on earth.

• 42:38Keke Palmer?

  So interesting.

• 42:39Speaker 01

  And so being able to help people to see that through, you know, storytelling, you know, on the podcast and, and in other areas is, is still something that brings me great joy, stimulation and curiosity.

• 42:50Keke Palmer?

  Did you realize at the time, I think it's so important to ask people such as yourself, I mean, you are a cultural institution, but I always wonder, especially for any of us that are on our path. What did it feel like during the time? Did you actually feel like when you were doing the Oprah Winfrey Show, "I'm doing something, I'm making something crazy, incredible, that's gonna last a lifetime"? Or did it feel chaotic and nerve-wracking and, you know what I mean?

• 43:16Speaker 01

  Well, it was the joy of, you know, all the stuff that happens when you have a team in place and none of us are who we are without all the people in the background.

• 43:24Keke Palmer?

  That's facts.

• 43:24Speaker 01

  Making it, that's facts. Uh, making it happen. And so there was a, it was a machine that was really humanized by all of the passion and desire of, of producers and the entire staff to do a good job for the audience every day. And we decided around 1989, certainly I decided, that I wasn't gonna just be a show, I was gonna be a force for good in the world. And I did that, um, after doing a, a show with the Ku Klux Klan. I mean, I saw the Ku Klux Klan giving signals to each other. I was trying to, you know, show their vitriol and their hatred and I realized, "Oh, I'm doing the opposite. I'm creating a platform for them to spread their vitriol."

• 44:07Keke Palmer?

  Their immunity.

• 44:08Speaker 01

  And I had done another show where a, a husband had his mistress on and his wife on and he embarrassed his mistress in the middle of the show. Embarrassed his wife by saying, "Oh, you don't know, she's pregnant." And I said, "Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, we don't..." To see her face and her humiliation, I go, "I'm, I'm, I'm not gonna be a part of that." So I sat down with the team and said, "That thing I was talking about earlier, how do we just do work that is intentional to lift up people's lives? How do you do a show every single day, no matter what it is, it's infused with some piece of light in it? That people walk away with something that they feel like, "Oh, that was worth my time."

• 44:50Keke Palmer?

  Yes, right. How can I be of service to you?

• 44:53Speaker 01

  Well, that's the word. The word is service. The word is service.

• 44:55Keke Palmer?

  Because otherwise, what are we doing? I don't wanna take from you, everybody's already taken from you as it is.

• 44:59Speaker 01

  Everybody is taking everything.

• 45:00Keke Palmer?

  So if I'm gonna sit up here and ask for a minute of your time, you, you, you, like Denzel, "I'm leaving with something."

• 45:07Keke Palmer?

  You know, you need to live with something. So I really love that.

• 45:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 45:11Keke Palmer?

  Um, let's talk about what it means to be a black woman in these spaces.

• 45:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:15Keke Palmer?

  And how you have to overcome so much based off perception, what people are expecting of you, while at the same time, still being true to who you are.

• 45:34Keke Palmer?

  In every great production, there is the star. And then there's the thing that makes the star look good without ever asking for credit. Think about it. The right lighting paired with a perfectly timed music cue. The one friend who fixes your collar before you walk into a room. They're unsung, but yet absolutely essential. Life is already asking a lot of you. The best things are the ones that take something off your plate without you even having to ask. That's what Fruit of the Loom Women's Underwear is in my daily lineup. I'm putting together looks, I'm making entrances, I'm doing the most, as always. And underneath all of it is something so comfortable and so reliable that I genuinely forget it's there. And when you're going to do the most, the last thing you need is one more decision.

• 46:19Keke Palmer?

  Fruit of the Loom is the one I already made. Comfortable, reliable, completely off my mental checklist. The fit doesn't shift and the fabric doesn't fight me. It just lets me do what I do. The most powerful pieces in any ensemble are the ones that elevate without competing. And when something supports you that effortlessly, you stop searching and you start trusting. It becomes the easy choice. Not because it's basic, because it's exactly right. One less thing to figure out, one decision you never have to second guess about. Fruit of the Loom proves that simple feels really good. There are two versions of me at any given moment. There's the version that is on the way somewhere, locked in, unbothered, do not interrupt me, I have a purpose.

• 47:03Keke Palmer?

  And then there's the version that sees a Starbucks and just turns, mid-dried, with absolutely no hesitation. The second one is my favorite version, especially in the summer. I'm the one who orders a tropical butterfly refresher, guava and passion fruit flavors, these mango pineapple flavored pearls that pop in your mouth, and a butterfly pea flour infusion on top that just shifts the color of the whole drink right in front of you. And I stand there watching it happen like it's the most important thing that happened all week, because it might be. One small choice can lead to a whole shift. Unlock your best summer memories with the Tropical Butterfly Refresher from Starbucks. Order now on the app.

• 47:45Keke Palmer?

  I think that's something that, uh, it's so interesting because we can find ourselves learning so many different languages, so to speak. And then by the time that you get there, the very people that you were, that were motivating you to get to that place, sometimes don't even recognize you. You go from being the underdog, or someone that people are rooting for, to sitting on the top of the mountain, and all of a sudden, you don't look the same.

• 48:07Speaker 01

  To them.

• 48:08Keke Palmer?

  To them.

• 48:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, those are the people who couldn't handle the oxygen. They couldn't handle the climb. So you cannot bring everybody along with you, and I will say this to anybody who's listening, at whatever level you are, particularly if you are the first person in your family to break through. Then, I remember in those early days, when my salary was, you know, all over the front pages of all the tabloids and stories and, you know. Now that I look back on it, I can see how much God loves me, because at the time, because I'd always been in television since I was 19 years old, I was just going from one job to the, and now I'm gonna do this job, and I realized that doing my own

• 48:53Speaker 01

  show in Chicago was a, was a big deal. But I never expected to become, I, I, I remember telling my father when I was in the barber shop, my father had a barber shop in East Nashville, one day, that, um, actually, this is a better story. When my father was dying in 2022, we were sitting out on the porch.

• 49:12Keke Palmer?

  Long life.

• 49:13Speaker 01

  And my father said, uh, "Is it true what they say?" I said, "What do you mean?" He goes, "They say you a billionaire."

• 49:23Keke Palmer?

  Huh?

• 49:24Speaker 01

  "Is that true?"

• 49:24Keke Palmer?

  You say you what?

• 49:25Speaker 01

  A billionaire.

• 49:27Keke Palmer?

  Okay.

• 49:28Speaker 01

  That's what my father said to me. He says, is that true? This is twenty twenty two, July, July fifth, twenty twenty two. And I said, yeah, it's true. He goes, well, that's something. That's really something. He goes, you never talked about being a billionaire. Now, you always talked about being a millionaire. You always said that one day you were gonna be a millionaire. And I remember you running around the barber shop talking about you were gonna be a millionaire. And I remember Mr. Thomas, when you became a millionaire, said, you know, Oprah always said she was gonna become a millionaire. I didn't know how she's gonna do it, but she did it. So now you're telling me you're a billionaire. I said, well, I never talked about being a billionaire.

• 50:13Speaker 01

  I didn't know there was such a thing.

• 50:14Keke Palmer?

  Right.

• 50:15Speaker 01

  I didn't even know there was such a thing. And so this idea that I always had, I have always had a belief that my life was bigger than I could even imagine, because I always thought I was like, I belong to something bigger than myself, which is the higher power of God.

• 50:36Keke Palmer?

  Right.

• 50:36Speaker 01

  And so I actually do believe and did believe that through Christ you can do all.

• 50:42Keke Palmer?

  Do all things.

• 50:43Speaker 01

  I really do.

• 50:44Keke Palmer?

  You can.

• 50:45Speaker 01

  I really do.

• 50:46Keke Palmer?

  My life is a testimony to that.

• 50:47Speaker 01

  So is mine.

• 50:48Keke Palmer?

  Is yours.

• 50:49Speaker 01

  So is mine. I really did believe that.

• 50:51Keke Palmer?

  Me too.

• 50:52Speaker 01

  So all the things that people thought a black woman should be or should do, it never occurred to me that I couldn't do what I've done. It didn't, it never occurred to me. It just never occurred to me, never occurred to me. Because I always saw myself as a little black girl who was truly God's child. So much so that when I started school, and I didn't even know who my father was at the time. When I started school, I used to tell people, they say, who are your dad? And I go, Jesus is my daddy. And they go, this girl crazy. She up here talking about Jesus is her daddy. So I really grew up believing that I could do all things because I was God's child.

• 51:37Speaker 01

  And so when I walked into the newsroom and I was the only black woman there. I just assumed I was supposed to be there because God had made the way for that. It never occurred to me to feel like I didn't belong because I knew God had created the path for me to be there. When I got the job in Baltimore and was criticized for being black, let me just tell you, I didn't realize that I was doing an interview with Tracee Ellis Ross about hair. We were doing a big thing.

• 52:08Keke Palmer?

  Thank you so much.

• 52:09Speaker 01

  Okay, so why are you crying?

• 52:11Keke Palmer?

  Because I feel that exact same way, where even in my human moments where it's scary, or you can, you know, people call it imposter syndrome, whatever, my courage has always came through because I have such a deep faith in God.

• 52:29Speaker 01

  I don't have imposter syndrome.

• 52:31Keke Palmer?

  Literally, my, my, my, the source, it's like, no matter what feels, seems strange on the outside, it has never guided or stopped or thwarted my ability to push forward. And I think the tears are also coming from, first of all, it's an overwhelming sense of recognition, and then it's like, how do, how, when people don't have that, when they don't know that, when they can't find their connection to that, I also feel grief for that.

• 52:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:00Keke Palmer?

  Because certain things are out of your control.

• 53:01Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 53:02Keke Palmer?

  But that does not mean that it can stop you. And yet, we are living in a world where people feel absolutely stopped. They feel like there's not, there is, every hill is too high, there's no, there's no road they can get past, and that, that really saddens me.

• 53:16Speaker 01

  Well, it saddens me, but to, well, can I say it saddens me? No, it doesn't sadden me. I'm not even sad by it anymore. You will get to the point where you won't be sad anymore about it, because you will be so grateful that you're one of the people who understands how it works. And so, what I never understood when I was a kid is like, people going to church, praying, praying, praying, praying, praying to God, and then going home and worrying, worrying, worrying, worrying, worrying. So, here, I mean, when I lived in Chicago, my kitchen faced the Lake Michigan, and the sun would come up every morning over the lake. And I would stand there drinking my tea or coffee, or whatever it was at the time, and

• 53:57Speaker 01

  I would, I would just watch the sun rise before heading off to work. And I think my faith is like that. My, I have sunrise faith. All of us have been in an airplane where it's pouring raining on the ground and all kinds of crazy things are happening on the ground. And then you shoot above the clouds and there the sun is there. It's always there. Yeah. Well, the power of God, the power of the force of your life, which you can feel in your breath, in every breath, there is the force of life. That's right. Breathing with above, around and through you. I have faith in that thing. I have faith in the thing that causes that sun

• 54:42Speaker 01

  Yes. to come up every morning. And the thing that made that sun come up every morning, certainly if I am in alignment with the truth of myself and I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing, I'm moving in the direction that I'm supposed to be moving, it's gonna meet me where I am. And it's gonna grow me to the next level. That is what has happened in your life. That is what has happened in my life. And, and, and, and, and all those years I was journaling and I was praying. I have these journals where I'm, you know, asking God to help the guy who, whose bumper I was holding on to. "God, please make him love me. Help him to see that I'm really the woman he needs." And all that crazy [BLEEP].

• 55:25Speaker 01

  What I realize now is God was waiting on me. I'm waiting on God to do something to change Him. And God is waiting on you. And so it's all about what do you really want? And are you in alignment with why you, with your purpose? That, as I was gonna say, the great teaching from Seed of the Soul for me, there's a great line in there that says, "When your personality," you have a great one. You have a big one. Your personality's huge, okay? Ginormous personality. Comes to serve the energy of your soul. That is authentic empowerment. So that means when you are using, no matter who you are, if you are using your personality, what you, your, your talents, your gifts,

• 56:09Speaker 01

  to serve the deeper reason why you're here, then you are in alignment with purpose and nobody can touch you.

• 56:20Speaker 01

  No weapon formed against you shall prosper. Because you are in alignment with that thing, that force that makes the sun come up every morning. You are in alignment with that thing. And so, why am I gonna walk in a room and feel that because I'm a black woman, anything other than I am supposed to be here?

• 56:45Speaker 01

  Because God is the one who paved the way for me. I did not get here by myself. I mean, listen, I live in some of the most beautiful spaces in the world, but there is not one moment that I look outside my yard and I don't see the presence of God that got me there. I mean, I pay, I pay, I pay, I pay for it. I pay for it. But the, the fact that I'm in that space is a gift to me. And the same thing, you're rising, I see you rising, and I see you meeting that rising for yourself. And I will tell you that your future is so bright, it burns my eyes. That's what's coming for you. That is what's coming for you.

• 57:29Speaker 01

  Because you are willing to be in alignment with the true purpose of your life, and you're not just out here playing. And when you stop playing, you know, Maya used to say to me all the time, that maybe one day you're gonna, right now you're in show business, but one day you will be about your father's business. When you can, when you can align your business with your father's business.

• 57:52Keke Palmer?

  How did you make your philosophy something that you could scale? Because that, it's not just superficial, it's not, this is, and obviously, this is no shade to somebody making a lip gloss or something like that, that's not at all, but when I think about the business of Oprah Winfrey, you found a way to create an ecosystem around things that are actually very, um, the big ideas about growth, about inspiration.

• 58:21Speaker 01

  About who you can be.

• 58:21Keke Palmer?

  About who you can be.

• 58:23Speaker 01

  It's not just, not, not just who you can be, it's like who you already are, but can you meet the rising? I mean, you've already been Created to do great things and stop playing with yourself.

• 58:32Keke Palmer?

  How did you make that a scalable business? Did it come before you?

• 58:38Speaker 01

  The reason, you know, it's so interesting you're saying this because I remember in the early years, people would say, you know, the Oprah brand, the Oprah brand. And I was always offended by that. I know now everybody wants their own brand. But I was offended by the idea of people calling me a brand because I thought I'm not a brand, I'm a person. And all of this is just coming from myself. And so the reason why it's become scalable for me, because it's the truth of me. I was, I was seeking it for myself. I was seeking it for myself. I wanted to be whole. I wanted to fulfill the mission of my calling. I wanted to honor God's dream for me.

• 59:21Keke Palmer?

  Yes.

• 59:23Speaker 01

  And I think creation has a dream for everyone it's created. And my advice to people is lean into that dream and stop trying to dream it for yourself. Or align your dream with God's dream for you. What is that dream? What are you really here to do that's bigger than you playing around? What's bigger than your paycheck? What's bigger than your, the thing that, you know, you know, has you, you know, lit up or partying or whatever. There's something bigger, deeper going on for all of us. And what is the why? What is your why?

• 1:00:02Keke Palmer?

  Are there signs that people can touch on that point towards that meaning like, you know, when you know that you are in alignment or when you know that you are.

• 1:00:10Speaker 01

  You tell me when you've, when you've seen it. You tell me.

• 1:00:13Keke Palmer?

  Well, when I've seen it in my life, what I feel like it is, is I'm following the truth. I'm not, you know, it's like I'm making my choices not based off of directly the outcome, but what feels real to me. I'm almost sometimes feeling like I'm being literally led by a force to say something, to make a choice, to make a decision. It feels like it's just coming through me as opposed to I'm trying to design it. And so sometimes it is difficult when even I'm asked this question about. What it means to be in alignment, I think I always come back to finding a way to be present enough. Um, first, think I always start there. I love Pilates because of that. I know you. Because it really allows you to.

• 1:00:52Speaker 01

  Get that toe on the bar. You gotta get, I mean, they all gotta be.

• 1:00:59Speaker 01

  Jesus, and now your back is out too, and then, okay.

• 1:01:02Keke Palmer?

  But it's good with these new knees.

• 1:01:04Speaker 01

  Fantastic.

• 1:01:05Keke Palmer?

  Okay, I'm always thinking about how to know when I'm in, when I'm embodied. And when I'm not embodied. That helps me to also figure out what's be, what's leading me, how I'm actually being in the moment. But I, but it's, it's almost like something that you, that you just feel. It's the inner thing that I've always felt since I was a little girl, like what you were talking about. You know, your, what your dad was saying that you were saying in the barber shop. I was like that as a kid. I always knew that there was something bigger than me. You know what I mean? I wasn't sure if that was just because I grew up in a church. You know, my dad's a deacon. Like, was that just that connection? Like, I'm always trying to figure out how to distill what has allowed me to become, because the process of becoming is so.

• 1:01:44Speaker 01

  I can tell you what it is, even if you, even if you haven't articulated it for yourself, it means you listened to something beyond the voice in your head. You were the observer of the voice in your head that we're talking about. And you were able to listen to the still, small voice that led you forward. Every decision that has brought you success and me success and anybody else who's listening has come from that space of something that's bigger than you, that has a dream for you, for lack of a better word. That has a design for you, that's waiting for you to find the flow for yourself. And the way to the flow is the truth. You can't do it if you're not in truth.

• 1:02:28Speaker 01

  You can't do it if you're abusing yourself. You can't do it if you, if you, if you allow other people to be in your life to diminish you. You are punishing yourself. It is a violent act against yourself. To allow other people in your life to diminish you and to not lift you and exalt you. If you don't have other people who see you for the light that you are, for the joy that you are, for the goodness that you bring, you are with the wrong people. I don't care how that shows up in your life. If it's somebody you're working with, but somebody you're in deep relationship with, the reason that person keeps showing up in your life is for you to make the change. You can't change them, you know?

• 1:03:13Speaker 01

  That's why the Wizard of Oz is one of the greatest teachings ever.

• 1:03:16Keke Palmer?

  It's excellent.

• 1:03:17Speaker 01

  It's excellent.

• 1:03:18Keke Palmer?

  And what I love so much about the Good Witch is that she wasn't really telling Dorothy what to do. She was guiding Dorothy towards herself.

• 1:03:24Speaker 01

  She was making Dorothy remember. She was helping Dorothy remember. So it's Dorothy who says, "I guess I learned that I look no further than my own backyard." The other great teaching of the Good Witch is, when she says to the wicked witch of the West, "Go away, you have no power here." So here's the truth for all of us. You only have power in your own territory. She was saying to the wicked witch, "You have no power, because this ain't your territory." You have nothing to do here, witch.

• 1:03:52Keke Palmer?

  Exactly.

• 1:03:52Speaker 01

  That's right. And the same thing for all of us. We spend so much time focused on other people's territory that you have no power over. So just take care of your own backyard, your own territory, and not worry. See that the things that are showing up in your life are showing up to help you raise your level of maturity, of growth, of consciousness for yourself. That's why it's showing up.

• 1:04:17Keke Palmer?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:18Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's not about them.

• 1:04:20Keke Palmer?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 1:04:21Speaker 01

  This is such a great conversation.

• 1:04:23Keke Palmer?

  It's such a great conversation. I really, we gotta have a part two on you.

• 1:04:26Speaker 01

  Baby, I'm with Tiki. Baby, I'm with Tiki.

• 1:04:28Keke Palmer?

  Yeah, baby, I'm with Orfa. Or Orpa, I should say. My girl. Okay, I'm not going to keep you forever, but you're going to have me on your podcast?

• 1:04:36Speaker 01

  I'm going to have you on my podcast.

• 1:04:37Keke Palmer?

  Please, so that we can get into some more stuff.

• 1:04:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, we gotta do it.

• 1:04:40Keke Palmer?

  Because I really, I mean, I could go on forever, but I'm not going to take all my girls' time. I'll end it with a little game.

• 1:04:46Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:04:47Keke Palmer?

  So basically, I'm going to ask you a bunch of things that you may or may not do. You can tell me yes, no, absolutely not. But I'm nosy, so if there's a story, you know, go ahead, give it to me.

• 1:04:57Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:04:58Keke Palmer?

  Okay. It's, would you ever? Okay, so first one, would you ever host another daily talk show?

• 1:05:04Speaker 01

  Well, I think I am, actually. I'm doing it twice a week with a podcast. It feels, it feels like that. Because sometimes I do it with an audience, so I lo-

• 1:05:12Keke Palmer?

  Oh, yeah, I love that, too.

• 1:05:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. A daily is too much.

• 1:05:15Keke Palmer?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:05:15Speaker 01

  Daily is too much.

• 1:05:18Keke Palmer?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:19Keke Palmer?

  The medium's changed.

• 1:05:20Speaker 01

  The medium has changed.

• 1:05:21Keke Palmer?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:21Speaker 01

  And it has evolved into the podcast is a new, new way of communicating with people.

• 1:05:25Keke Palmer?

  And two days gives it little time for things to catch up. You know, you need, you know, you need news feed.

• 1:05:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:05:29Keke Palmer?

  Um, okay. Take a group vacation.

• 1:05:34Speaker 01

  Who's in the group?

• 1:05:34Keke Palmer?

  Exactly.

• 1:05:35Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:05:36Keke Palmer?

  So you would take a group vacation, but it needs to be certain folks.

• 1:05:40Speaker 01

  Curated.

• 1:05:41Keke Palmer?

  I know, that's right, yes. How many people, max?

• 1:05:45Speaker 01

  Uh, ten.

• 1:05:46Keke Palmer?

  Oh. I love that. Call me, oh. I'll behave. I'll behave. Ten people, that's a lot of folk.

• 1:05:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:05:53Keke Palmer?

  Love that.

• 1:05:53Speaker 01

  But you're gonna need two cars for all the travel and na, na, na, na, na. But you can do ten. Yeah, okay?

• 1:05:58Keke Palmer?

  Yeah, I like that. I like that. Okay. Sharing clothes with Gail?

• 1:06:02Speaker 01

  No. I don't share things. If, if, if, if, once, once you take something of mine, keep it.

• 1:06:09Keke Palmer?

  Okay. Did you see Gail on Call Her Daddy? So funny, talking about, you know, people thought we were gay. It didn't bother Oprah, because she had a man. That gagged me. She's saying that nobody would be hitting on her, because they thought she was taken.

• 1:06:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:06:22Keke Palmer?

  Child.

• 1:06:22Speaker 01

  It's true. It's true. That has followed us forever and ever.

• 1:06:25Keke Palmer?

  It was, it's really cool, though, to hear you guys talk about it. You know what I mean? Like, and just say how you felt, because we didn't know.

• 1:06:31Speaker 01

  It's so interesting, because, because for a long time, Maya said, "Don't say anything about it." Because you only give it power. So we played that for a long time, like, "Don't say anything, don't say anything, same thing, don't say anything." Now, I think, you know, Gail goes, "I don't care. I'm just gonna talk about it." So, I think, and my, my god, if you, if you're still thinking that, then you're an idiot.

• 1:06:50Keke Palmer?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:50Speaker 01

  You're just an idiot.

• 1:06:51Keke Palmer?

  It's really relatable, though.

• 1:06:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:53Keke Palmer?

  You know, it is.

• 1:06:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:54Keke Palmer?

  Because people always do that. Make up stories about, come on, man.

• 1:06:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:06:57Keke Palmer?

  Let me alone. Um, read spoilers before finishing a book.

• 1:07:01Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:07:03Keke Palmer?

  Okay. You run a strict program.

• 1:07:04Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, I got a strict. Oh, no. I, I can't, I can't finish it if I've read, read the spoiler.

• 1:07:10Keke Palmer?

  Really?

• 1:07:10Speaker 01

  Then there's no reason for me to continue. I can't.

• 1:07:12Keke Palmer?

  What's your favorite book of all time?

• 1:07:14Speaker 01

  The Bluestye, Toni Morrison.

• 1:07:16Keke Palmer?

  Amazing book.

• 1:07:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:17Keke Palmer?

  Never turned it into a movie?

• 1:07:19Speaker 01

  No, too hard.

• 1:07:20Keke Palmer?

  Why would you, what do you mean? What are you saying?

• 1:07:22Speaker 01

  Too hard. It's just too hard. It's too hard.

• 1:07:24Keke Palmer?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:25Speaker 01

  Sad little black girls. You know, the story of Bluestye is, uh, you know, was actually Toni Morrison's first story. And- One of the things that surprised me when I had her on the show to talk about this book is that women around the world related to Pacola Breedlove, who is the main character, the little girl who went insane trying to have blue eyes, little black girl wanting blue eyes. And the message is that everything we've been talking about here today, anytime you're trying to be somebody you're not, it's insanity because you were only created to be you. So you are completely out of alignment if you're trying to be something that you don't have the capacity to be.

• 1:08:07Speaker 01

  So understanding your own capacity and who you were meant to be, that's the most important thing. And you can't do that by yourself. You have to ask the power, whether you call it God or not, you have to meditate, you have to sit in gratitude, you have to say, what do you want from me? What, what, why? You have to ask the big questions of your life in order to continue to move forward. And I, my journals are filled with, why am I here?

• 1:08:30Keke Palmer?

  Yes.

• 1:08:30Speaker 01

  Why am I here? Why am I here? Why am I really here? Am I here? I'm not just here to have a talk show and have shoes.

• 1:08:36Keke Palmer?

  Yes.

• 1:08:37Speaker 01

  And have good shoes. What, what, what are you here to offer?

• 1:08:40Keke Palmer?

  But it's so real what you're saying because it's a broken equation to not acknowledge the you of it all.

• 1:08:45Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:08:46Keke Palmer?

  When you are constantly, that's why some people say, oh, you just showed up, you just saw yourself. Well, who else I'm gonna be?

• 1:08:51Speaker 01

  Who else you gonna be?

• 1:08:52Keke Palmer?

  You know, that's, that's why. It's like, I, I don't have any other choices to be Kiki.

• 1:08:55Speaker 01

  And it's also the reason why, you know, many, many times Gail, Gail was saying, you're just sitting there by yourself. I go, I'm not by myself, I'm actually with myself. I'm never by myself. I'm always with myself and I am the best company I could ever keep for myself. That's what I feel.

• 1:09:13Keke Palmer?

  Did it ever get lonely?

• 1:09:14Speaker 01

  I have never experienced loneliness.

• 1:09:17Keke Palmer?

  Really?

• 1:09:18Speaker 01

  No. I don't even know what that means. I actually don't know what that means.

• 1:09:23Keke Palmer?

  Well, well, I guess in this context, it would be not being met, you know? I think most people would maybe think, how many people can Oprah talk to?

• 1:09:34Speaker 01

  Well, I think in my early days, I mean, those 20 crazy, 20, twenties, which were crazy for me, I think I felt lonely then because I felt I needed somebody to make myself feel whole.

• 1:09:47Speaker 01

  I don't feel that anymore. So I feel like I would be one of those people who could, I mean, obviously you need connection, relationships and community, but I am happiest with myself.

• 1:09:59Keke Palmer?

  I love this. Um, okay, just femur and go on a reality show. I already know the answer to this.

• 1:10:05Speaker 01

  You know, I don't have.

• 1:10:06Keke Palmer?

  Exactly. Read your social media comments?

• 1:10:09Speaker 01

  No, I don't read them.

• 1:10:11Keke Palmer?

  Karaoke?

• 1:10:12Speaker 01

  No, I don't.

• 1:10:13Keke Palmer?

  No, no, I don't, period.

• 1:10:15Speaker 01

  No, I don't.

• 1:10:16Keke Palmer?

  Be thirty again.

• 1:10:18Speaker 01

  No, I don't want to be thirty again, but I would take forty-four. I think, I think it's life starts at forty-four.

• 1:10:23Keke Palmer?

  Woo, tell me, tell me why, why forty-four was so good?

• 1:10:26Speaker 01

  Because you come into yourself in a way that you're not, you're no longer trying to please everybody else. You come into yourself, you, you, you have them. I do have some girls now, um, that I've mentored who are in their early thirties who've gotten to it sooner, but for me, it was forty-four where I locked in, where I locked in and I could, I, I, I could see the rising for myself. I wasn't just doing things for other people. I wasn't just, just, you know, creating the work to be like, oh, I have this talk show. I really was in full drive, purposeful living for myself. Forty-four is when it locks in.

• 1:11:05Keke Palmer?

  You saying that is so interesting about the thirty-year-olds that you're working with. I'm curious of what you see in the difference generationally, what, you know, was allowed or what was possible for thirties something women in your time and then when you see the thirty-somethings of us now.

• 1:11:18Speaker 01

  When I share my, my, my stories from my journal or even actually have the girls looking at my journal, they say, they go, golly, what, what kind of woman were you? And what was that? They can't even believe it. The idea of putting up with somebody who doesn't return a phone call or somebody who doesn't, you know, all these stories I have about, you know, not running my bath water because the phone might ring and so sitting by the window and waiting on the, the blue dots and to show up.

• 1:11:45Keke Palmer?

  So sweet.

• 1:11:45Speaker 01

  So, so pitiful, so pitiful, so pitiful. So I see that there's a level of independence and growth.

• 1:11:52Keke Palmer?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:53Speaker 01

  In, in, in, uh, my daughter girls now that I didn't have. There's a level of maturity and, uh, respect for themselves. And I would have to say I played a big role in that because for all of my girls, particularly the South African girls. They grew up in environments where they were abandoned. And I used, I used to teach a class at my school called Life 101. And I literally said to them, "You're gonna have major problems in your relationships unless you accept, get to the point of acceptance, that you have been abandoned in your life." Because a lot of them lost their parents when they were, because AIDS. And, you know,

• 1:12:37Speaker 01

  absolutely poverty and crime and all the other things. So, you don't wanna be, I said, you're either gonna be the kind of woman who is going through the pockets of your spouse and looking at the wallet and looking at the phone calls and "who did you see?" and "huh, nah, dah, dah." "Do you love me enough?" Or you're the kind of person who shuts all of that down and you don't let anybody in. So, do the work on yourself, for yourself, that gets you to the point where you can have full acceptance of yourself. So, you're not blaming your relationships for where you are. And so, I've seen that. I mean, those girls are so, they're so good at it. They're so good at it. Much better than I was.

• 1:13:21Speaker 01

  I mean, I was like, I was late, late, late.

• 1:13:24Keke Palmer?

  But it's so good, like you were saying.

• 1:13:26Speaker 01

  Hold on to the bumper, baby.

• 1:13:31Keke Palmer?

  That imagery?

• 1:13:32Speaker 01

  Oh, my God. No, no, this imagery. Okay. You see all the people watching from their apartments? Oh, my God, that was bad.

• 1:13:39Keke Palmer?

  Well, I think, you know what? I'll go ahead and leave it there. And I'll just say that, what a joy. What a joy to sit down with you. What a joy.

• 1:13:49Speaker 01

  What a conversation.

• 1:13:50Keke Palmer?

  Man.

• 1:13:51Speaker 01

  Baby.

• 1:13:51Keke Palmer?

  We went here, there.

• 1:13:53Speaker 01

  There.

• 1:13:53Keke Palmer?

  Okay.

• 1:13:57Speaker 01

  Okay, have fun cutting that, y'all.

• 1:13:58Keke Palmer?

  Okay. Thank you so much for hanging out with me. Baby, this is Keke Palmer's soul. Oh, wait, I have one more thing to show you. I think this'll give you a little key.

• 1:14:07Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:14:08Keke Palmer?

  Okay, let me pull this up. Hold on, girl. This is crazy. Ready to be gagged?

• 1:14:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, ready to be.

• 1:14:16Speaker 02

  Please welcome a bright new young talent and the star of Aquila and the Bee, 12-year-old Keke Palmer. Come on out.

• 1:14:27Keke Palmer?

  No, that isn't.

• 1:14:35Keke Palmer?

  What year is this? 2005, 4?

• 1:14:38Speaker 02

  You kicked some in this movie.

• 1:14:39Speaker 03

  Oh, thank you.

• 1:14:40Speaker 02

  You were wonderful.

• 1:14:42Keke Palmer?

  Look at you! I love this.

• 1:14:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, I did. I'm Doug. Never gave me a break.

• 1:14:49Keke Palmer?

  Oh, my God.

• 1:14:50Speaker 01

  That's so good.

• 1:14:51Keke Palmer?

  I was always some little Doogie Howser. Why did I have this suit on?

• 1:14:54Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:14:56Keke Palmer?

  Oh, my gosh, I was such a serious kid.

• 1:14:57Speaker 01

  I remember this. I remember. I mean, don't we all automatically go back to what I was wearing that day?

• 1:15:01Keke Palmer?

  Oh, my gosh, you looked fabulous. I love this orange and this hair, this little half-up-and-down do.

• 1:15:06Speaker 03

  I didn't expect to cry. I just went in there and did the best thing I could do. And I went in there and I just started to cry when I was doing the lines. And I just was crying and saying the lines. And then I went and shook all the producers' hands.

• 1:15:17Keke Palmer?

  Keke Palmer, age 12 actress. Wow. Age 12, wow.

• 1:15:23Speaker 01

  OK, I can't wait to talk to you.

• 1:15:24Keke Palmer?

  I can't wait.

• 1:15:25Speaker 01

  I can't wait to talk to you.

• 1:15:26Keke Palmer?

  I cannot wait.

• 1:15:27Speaker 01

  OK. I did your podcast. You gotta do my podcast.

• 1:15:30Keke Palmer?

  It's done!

• 1:15:31Speaker 01

  You're done!

• 1:15:32Keke Palmer?

  Yes, you're the best, girl!

• 1:15:33Speaker 01

  Then you can see my backyard.

• 1:15:35Keke Palmer?

  Yes! My girl, oh.

• 1:15:42Keke Palmer?

  Oh, that was Oprah Winfrey. You guys, I just cannot believe the conversation that I was having with her. I mean, I was looking at my notes, and this is one of the rare times where I didn't even have to remember what I had to say because the conversation was just flowing. We've been with Oprah for so long, I think sometimes we take for granted who she's been to all of us. The aha moments she's given us. And she gave so many to me, and hopefully you all, right there. Ah, for someone who has helped so many people better understand themselves and their purpose, it was cool to also see how she's still discovering her own. And with the Oprah Podcast, she's continuing to create space for those kinds of conversations.

• 1:16:23Keke Palmer?

  Thank you so much, Oprah, for being here and for showing us that even after achieving the dream, there is still discovery on the other side and gratitude for what got you there. See you guys next time. Baby, this is Keke Palmer.