These covers are both whimsical and charming and sort of remind me of How-To CD-ROMs from the late ’90s that purported to teach you how to email or “surf the net” or rip CDs or make your own public access news show. In all honesty, I feel like maybe more folks would have paid addition to how to install AOL if Keke Palmer had been the instructor.

The other cover is EXTREMELY charming, especially considering that half of her face is covered:

KekePalmerCoverGif_HiRes_Still2-1657742653

It takes a lot of charisma to pull this off while modeling a high-fashion fishnet — as we learned when Tyra Banks made everyone model through one on ANTM — but here we are. This outfit is objectively nonsense. But it is nonsense she is pulling off.

As far as the profile goes, first off, she’s been styled in a catsuit I hated on Kristin Cavallari but don’t hate in a magazine editorial, and second, it’s a very enjoyable read and a good reminder of how accomplished and thoughtful Keke is beyond being arguably one of the most likeable people alive. To wit:

Much of your music has the underlying theme of being in control of your love life. When did you first come to terms with your own empowerment, and what agency do you want Black women and girls to reach regarding their romantic or sexual lives?

I came into that around 25 or 26. What saved me was putting myself first. That doesn’t mean I’m not compromising, but my level of compromising is very tight, and not in the way of being selfish, but in the form of: I cannot go against what I think is right for me. In love, the main thing for us young women is that we end up contorting ourselves into a pretzel. I want us to know that—and this is something I tell myself—the only way I’m going to have love and the love that I want is if I love myself first. If the guy isn’t into the things I’m into, or if he wants me to do stuff that I don’t normally do, and I’m going to do it because I want him to like me, then he’s not the one. And maybe he could be the one, but I wouldn’t know because I didn’t tell him no and see how he responded to it.

That’s the big thing I’d hope for young women. We often get wrapped up in love, wanting love, and feeling like we need it to be validated by it. And it’s okay to want it, but on top of wanting it, we have to know that we don’t need it. The part of us knowing and accepting that we don’t need it is what’s going to explode us into the stratosphere and allow us to focus on things that are going to take us to where we should be going and around the kind of people we should be around, and ultimately getting to that endgame, whatever that might look like.

This is SO well-adjusted and insightful. Maybe she could also write an advice column?

[Credits: Photographer: Lea Winkler, Writer: Ru Wolle, Stylist: Justin Hamilton, Hair: Malcolm Marquez for KISS Colors & Care, Makeup: Jordana David, Manicurist: Riley Miranda for Gel Bottle, Prop Stylist: Romain Goudinoux]
Tags: Glamour
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