Keke Palmer and Demi Lovato opened up about their experiences with much older men when they were teenagers, with both reflecting on how these relationships look very different through adult eyes.
The candid conversation took place during the March 3 episode of Palmer’s Baby, this is Keke Palmer podcast, where the two former child stars bonded over shared experiences growing up in the spotlight.
It was Palmer, 32, who kicked things off with a question that stopped the conversation in its tracks. “I’m fifteen, why was my boyfriend 20?” she said, before Lovato, 33, quietly added, “Why was my boyfriend 30?”
This admission visibly struck Palmer.
“Girl, damn,” she said. “I’m not smiling at that, but it’s real. We were trying to find outlets though and just a way to deal with it.”
She then described the unsettling realization that comes with getting older and understanding what was really going on at that time.
“The moment when you realize and understand [to] the age of a lot of people who were around you doing things,” she said, “it’s almost a mental break that can happen because you realize, ‘You were enjoying it.’ Oh, I was being exploited.'”
Both women talked about how their early careers created a distorted sense of maturity that made these relationships seem normal at the time.
“It’s been really hard for me because at 15, I’m like, ‘My boyfriend is older because I’m doing an older job. And I’m doing a bunch of things and that’s the way it is,'” Palmer explained.
“And it seemed normal to me.” Lovato agreed, noting that it seemed especially justified if you were considered “an older soul” or told you were “mature for your age.”
This phrase, “mature for your age,” became a common thread in the conversation.
Palmer praised his former child star Hilary Duff for discussing the same experience in her song 2025 Maturesaying, “Yeah, because it’s like ‘oh shit, we’ve all had the same fucking life.’ You know what I mean, when people kept telling us, ‘You’re so mature for your age.'”
Lovato pointed Palmer at her own 2022 song 29which is grappling with the same territory.
“I also wrote a song about it,” she said.
“It’s called 29 and when you listen to it, I think you’ll be able to relate to it.”
Lovato has not publicly revealed who the song is about, although she dated actor Wilmer Valderrama for six years before their split in 2016. Valderrama is now 46 years old.
Palmer previously opened up about an “inappropriate” relationship with an older man while starring in True Jackson, Vice President. She shares her three-year-old son Leo with ex Darius Jackson. Lovato married Jordan “Jutes” Lutes in May.
