Keke Palmer rejects fan proposal at SXSW: 'I can't marry you, I don't know you'
Keke Palmer rejects fan proposal at SXSW: 'I can't marry you, I don't know you'
Kathleen PerriconeFri, March 13, 2026 at 9:38 PM UTC
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Keke Palmer on stage at South by SouthwestCredit: Mike Jordan/SXSW Conference & Festivals via Getty
Keke Palmer is once again “sorry to this man” after a fan proposed to her at SXSW on Friday.
The I Love Boosters actress was interviewing her costars at the South by Southwest Film & TV Festival in Austin when a random man got down on one knee in front of the stage and pulled out a ring box.
“I can’t marry you, I don’t know you. I’m so sorry,” replied a shocked Palmer, as her costars’ jaws collectively dropped. “I’m so sorry, sir… Is this a prank?”
The audience laughed, albeit a little nervously, as the would-be fiancé’s insistence made things awkward.
First, an attendant approached the man to gently guide him out, but he wouldn’t budge. A plain-clothes security guard then appeared from behind Palmer onstage and also urged the lovelorn fan to move along. But he still refused.
By then, security was done playing games. In videos circulating on social media, the guard grabs the fan — who appears to be wearing SXSW press credentials — by the arm and drags him away from the stage, as the crowd erupts into applause.
Also of note: The man seems to be wearing a band on his left ring finger.
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Palmer, who was hosting the panel for her Baby, This Is Keke Palmer podcast, did her best to keep the show moving. "Sorry, guys, let's just take a deep breath in," she told the audience, before continuing her interview with I Love Boosters' Demi Moore, Taylour Paige, Naomi Ackie, Poppy Liu, and Eiza González.
In another angle of the proposal, the stunt was no joke to those in attendance.
“Nah, hey, he was doing some weird s‑‑‑ earlier,” a woman says as the man approaches Palmer. “She needs help, bro,” adds another female voice. “She needs security.”
This, of course, is not the first time Palmer effectively shut down an awkward moment with an apology.
In 2019, she went viral when Vanity Fair asked if her eponymous character in Nickelodeon's True Jackson, VP was "a better VP than Dick Cheney."
Palmer, unsure who he was, famously replied: "I hate to say it, I hope I don't sound ridiculous, I don't know who this man is. I mean, he could be walking down the street, I wouldn't know a thing. Sorry to this man."
on Entertainment Weekly
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
