The actress opens up about Pilates, motherhood, and the wellness platform she built for herself
Keke Palmer has never been the type to do anything halfway. The actress, entrepreneur and now wellness advocate is stepping into a new chapter of her life, one rooted in presence, intention and the kind of self-awareness that only comes after going through something truly transformative.
Keke’s wake-up call after Leo
When Palmer welcomed her son Leodis, affectionately known as Leo, in February 2023, something shifted. The experience of pregnancy and childbirth left her feeling disconnected from herself in ways she had not fully anticipated. Rather than simply focusing on getting her body back in a conventional sense, she began asking deeper questions about why she had spent so much of her life operating on autopilot.
She has spoken about realizing that being emotionally and physically disconnected from herself was not a new phenomenon triggered by pregnancy. It was a pattern she had been unconsciously running for years. Motherhood simply made it impossible to ignore any longer.
How Pilates became more than a workout
The practice that helped her begin untangling that pattern was Pilates. What started as a way to physically reconnect with her postpartum body quickly became a much more meaningful tool. Through the discipline of staying anchored in her core and remaining intentional during each movement, she found herself learning how to stay present in her daily life as well.
The physical training, she discovered, was mirroring something emotional. When she began applying that same quality of attention to difficult moments off the mat, including situations she would typically walk away from, she found herself choosing to stay and work through them instead. The results surprised her.
Motherhood as a mirror
Palmer has been candid about the ways parenting Leo forced her to show up differently. There is a rawness to the way she describes it, acknowledging that a child does not allow for the kind of emotional drift that adults can sometimes indulge. His presence demands hers, and that demand turned out to be a gift.
She has also spoken about how loving her son opened her eyes to what she deserves in her own life. The clarity that came from nurturing someone else helped her better understand her own worth in a way that years of personal development alone had not managed to unlock.
Practice by Palmer and the wellness vision
That personal evolution eventually became the foundation for something larger. Earlier this year, Palmer launched Practice by Palmer, a holistic digital wellness platform and subscription app designed around the idea that sustainable wellbeing has to be personal and flexible enough to fit real life.
The platform offers workouts, audio style reflections, a shared community space and live sessions hosted by Keke herself. The tools available to subscribers are not theoretical. They are the exact practices she has woven into her own daily routine. Her long term vision for the platform includes expanding into more in person experiences, bringing the online community together in tangible ways.
The bigger picture
At the 2026 Tribeca Film Festival, Palmer sat down with Whoopi Goldberg for a candid conversation about her wellness path, her relationship with fame and what it means to truly live intentionally. She made clear that her definition of wellness goes far beyond clean eating or gym sessions. For her, it is about finding balance that is actually sustainable, not a performance of health but a genuine experience of it.
She also reflected on a recent TED Talk she delivered, titled How I Set Myself Free, which covered much of the same ground. Looking back on it, she described the experience of giving that speech as deeply empowering, a moment of reclaiming her own story with clarity and precision.
Keke’s message to others
What Palmer ultimately wants people to take away from her journey is this: you may not be able to change the world around you, but you can change how you move through it. That shift, she believes, is where real transformation begins. And if you can find others willing to make that same commitment alongside you, the whole thing becomes a little more possible.