An empowering experience. Keke Palmer has been very open about her skin struggles (read: adult acne and facial hair) over the past year and she’s determined to keep the conversation going.
The 28-year-old star shared last December that she was diagnosed with PCOS, or polycystic ovarian syndrome. And during a Tuesday, November 16, interview on The Tamron Hall Show, she explained the impact of her journey.
“I kind of discovered that that’s what I was dealing with and it answered a lot of the question to, not only why I had acne, but why I grow hair on my face or under my chin, you know I kind of have a low key beard going on that I have to shave every couple of days,” she told Tamron Hall about her symptoms.
After narrowing in on the fact that PCOS was the cause, she started to change her diet to help calm flare ups. While she presented with acne and facial hair, she explained that it’s a common condition and there can be a handful of “variants” that are “different for everyone.”
Sharing her story with her followers has been quite the rewarding experience. In fact, she originally opened up about her diagnosis in an effort to “empower” herself.
“It was to empower myself and to give myself the opportunity to say, ‘You know what just own who you are.’ It was like me telling myself, ‘I love you girl no matter what. I love you so much that I’m gonna show your whole self to the world and I’m not gonna be afraid,’” she said in the interview. “It was essentially kind of like a selfish act of saying, ‘Hey, I still love myself despite what I may be going through and if you’re going through something like this too, I love you too.’”
Palmer original shared her diagnosis in December 2020, taking to Instagram to share a series of makeup free selfies that put her natural skin on display.
“Hey you guys, for some this may be TMI, but for me my platform has always been used for things much greater than me. Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome has been attacking me from the inside out my entire life and I had no idea,” she captioned the post.
She went on to detail “everything” that she tried over the years — to no avail. “It took ME taking a personal look into my family that has a history of diabetes and obesity to understand what was ACTUALLY happening with me.”
