As Keke Palmer gears up to bring her latest film, the Boots Riley-directed satirical film “I Love Boosters,” to the masses, it made its debut at the 2026 SXSW Festival in Texas on Friday. However, things went a little off-script, and now fans can’t stop talking about it!
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As we previously told you, the film follows a group of professional female shoplifters who target a high-end, cutthroat fashion mogul, with Palmer leading the pack alongside stars Naomie Ackie, Taylour Paige, LaKeith Stanfield and more. The film follows in Riley’s fantastical, over-the-top style, which also makes it perfect fodder for conversation. And that’s exactly what happened on Friday when Palmer and some of her costars sat down for a panel discussion about the film.
However, in a now-viral clip and a moment absolutely no one saw coming, a random man walked up to the stage and asked the “Hustlers” star to marry him, much to the shock of both the panelists and attendees.
“Are you serious?…. I can’t marry you, I don’t know you. I’m so sorry….Is this a prank?…Y’all talking ’bout ‘no.’ I guess we gotta get this settled then,” Palmer could be heard saying as the man remained bent down on one knee and seemingly refused to move.
A few seconds later, a female event worker quickly approached him, followed by a male security guard who came from backstage to address him. Eventually, after capturing his badge details and conversing with him for a while, he was forcibly escorted out of the room.
“I’m sorry guys, let’s just take a deep breath. Much love to you brotha,”Palmer said to the audience, in an attempt to lighten the mood.
Naturally, once the clip began making the rounds on social media, many were understandably outraged at the incident and how close the man got to the “Nope” star and expressed concern over her safety—especially given the eerie timing of the Rihanna home shooting incident that just took place earlier in the week.
“This is such a dangerous time and situation, unbelievable! Praying for everyone’s mental health and safety in these time,” wrote one user on Instagram.
“Keke…did yall not see what happen to Rihanna?! Time to switch it up,” said another on TikTok.
Another TikTok user provided even more context to the situation, writing: “We watched this guy storm into the room 2x before the event started and had to get removed from the room by security. He found seats sitting with the family on the second row and we told Kekes team and they were on watch. He came up to us trying to set next to us because it would give him direct access to her but we said no just for that reason. He still went up there and proposed… @Keke handled it with kindness.”
Wow. This has been an eye-opening week for celebs and their safety, we’re just glad that in both in RiRi and Keke’s instances, everyone got out safe!
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