What Is Going on with Ellie Kemper?!
Did you see the news? Ellie Kemper has been trending over the last week.
“Who?” I hear you asking.
Ellie Kemper.
She’s an actress. You might remember her as the airhead receptionist ‘Erin’ from The Office or as the naive small-town girl who moves to New York City (after being kidnapped and hidden in a bunker for years) in The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.
As a pop culture fan, I’m familiar with her from both shows, but my knowledge of her otherwise was limited to two things: she grew up in St. Louis, and Don Draper (er, Jon Hamm) was her high school drama teacher.
But last week she was all over the news – and not because she said something scandalous or decided to record a celeb-filled rendition of a John Lennon song.
No, she was in the news for something she did 22 years ago – long before she appeared on our TV screens.
An old news story emerged and revealed that when Ellie was 19, she was crowned the “Queen of Love and Beauty” at “The Veiled Prophet Ball” in St. Louis.
As Titus in Kimmy Schmidt would say:
While that sounded weird, the name of the ball – coupled with imagery of a man in a white robe and veil – immediately evoked associations with the Ku Klux Klan.
Suddenly, Ellie Kemper was a KKK Princess! Others crowned her a KKK Queen!
Except she wasn’t.
According to historians, the Veiled Prophet Organization was created in 1878 as a secret society for wealthy St. Louisans. The only thing diverse about it was probably its members' stock portfolios, but it isn’t associated with the KKK.
The part of the story that twitter and various news outlets got right was this – Ellie Kemper comes from a wealthy family. That may make her story of success less inspiring, but on its own is not a reason for an angry mob to grab their pitchforks.
A week after the photo resurfaced, Kemper finally responded to the controversy. She wrote on instagram that the century-old organization that hosted the debutante ball had an “unquestionably racist, sexist, and elitist past” and that her ignorance of that history was no excuse. She stressed that she rejects white supremacy, and apologized to the people she disappointed.
But what happens now?
Will this hurt her career?
Is she cancelled?
And what I really want to know is this: who did she piss off so much that they sent the internet after her? This feels like a Harvey Weinstein-style retaliation.
Although Kemper’s been a working actor for over a decade, she’s not necessarily what you’d consider an ‘A-List’ star. This news about her felt so oddly-timed. It’s like someone woke up and decided to go after a celebrity that day, and randomly chose Kemper’s name out of a hat.
While it’s unclear what (if any) lasting damage this situation will have on Kemper, it is a reminder that attacks and ‘fake news’ spread faster than Covid.
And you don’t have to be the “Queen of Love and Beauty” to be vulnerable.
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