Rise to Fame
Five auditions before the Akeelah and the Bee director finally cast her, at 11, opposite Angela Bassett and Laurence Fishburne. True Jackson, VP debuted to 4.8 million viewers, the most-watched live-action premiere in Nickelodeon history, and she earned $20,000 an episode. Then she did what almost no child star pulls off: stopped being one. Hustlers reintroduced her as a serious character actor in 2019. Nope (2022) confirmed it, winning her the New York Film Critics Circle Award. That arc took about 15 years and a lot of people underestimating her.
In the Spotlight
A sheer dress at an Usher Vegas concert became the flashpoint of summer 2023. Her then-boyfriend Darius Jackson quote-tweeted a clip of her on stage with "It's the outfit tho.. you a mom" and the internet sided with her immediately. What followed was messier: she filed for a temporary restraining order against Jackson alleging physical and emotional abuse, won temporary sole custody of their son Leo, and settled into joint custody by 2025. She turned the whole incident into a song interpolating Usher's own catalog. The through-line is control, and she doesn't give it up.
Side Notes
Her parents met in drama class and both had professional acting careers before life intervened and they took regular jobs. When producers saw her in Barbershop 2 and pushed the family to move to California, they went. She was 10. A SAG nomination for The Wool Cap had already made her the youngest actress ever nominated in a lead acting category. She's described the family's combined income as around $40,000 a year before her career took off. The nickname 'Keke' came from her sister. The whole family bet on her, and she paid it off.