Multihyphenate star Keke Palmer’s Saturday Night Live hosting debut was memorable in more ways than one. Not only has she starred in a series of hilarious skits, but she opened the show by announcing that she is pregnant with her first child while pregnant monologue. While Palmer hasn’t officially revealed who the father is, her boyfriend Darius Jackson posted a photo of her showing off her baby bump and captioning his with “2023.” Instagram story on Saturday. (POPSUGAR reached out to Palmer’s rep to comment on the news, but received no immediate response.)
Palmer announced the news during her opening monologue, in which she noted that her fans have been speculating that she’s anticipating it for some time. “There are some rumors going around, people have been saying in my comments ‘Keke is having a baby, Keke is pregnant’ and I want to set the record straight – I am!” said the ‘Nope’ star before unzipping her jacket to show the audience her pregnant belly.
She continued, “I have to say though, it’s bad when people spread rumors about you on the internet, but it’s even worse when they’re right. I mean, I’ve been trying so hard to keep it on the rock bottom because I’ve got a lot of stuff going, you know? People kept coming up to me and saying, ‘Congratulations!’ I say, “Shhh, can you all stop? I’ve got a liquor sponsorship on the line. Cash the check and we can go to the friggin’ baby shower.” But honestly that was the biggest blessing and I’m so excited. Guys, I’m going to be a mom!”
The Alice actress went on to remind her fans that despite being a child star, she’s all grown up now. “Even though some people feel a little weird because I’m having a baby, because I was a child actor, I just want to say, look, I’m 29, I’m an adult, I’m having sex, I own a house, I stormed it Capitol on January 6th, you know? Things adults do,” she joked.
While Palmer was open with viewers about her pregnancy, she didn’t mention her longtime boyfriend Jackson — but the actor was determined to keep their relationship out of the spotlight as much as possible. The couple have been together since summer 2021 and in August 2021 they officially went on Instagram. Last November she appeared on “The Tamron Hall Show” where she revealed why she decided to finally share her relationship with the world.
“It became harder to hide,” she said. “We spend all our time together and he’s really my closest friend, so it’s just going to be something I’m not going to hide anything that makes me happy.”
Image Credit: Will Heath/NBC