Keenan Thompson might be a comedy legend now,
but his journey wasn't always full of joy and laughter.
From body issues to a heartbreaking divorce,
the longtime SNL cast member has endured his fair share
of troubling times.
Keenan Thompson's mother and Thompson noticed that he had a
knack for entertaining when he was five years old.
According to the Washington Post,
Keenan didn't even need to speak to kill it as
Toto in a church production of The Wiz before long
and was making big sacrifices for her son's career.
The Georgia native would work a full week at her
nursing job,
weekends included, so that she could take the following week
off to help her son pursue his dream.
They also faced another obstacle,
scraping together the money they needed for the VHS cassettes
Keenan used to showcase his skills.
Speaking out of 17 Event,
Keenan said. When they asked me to send them another
tape,
I was like, I can't afford all these tapes.
By the time Keenan landed his first role in a
commercial,
he'd been rejected around 100 times.
When the IRS came after him,
Thompson realized just how badly he was getting cheated by
the accountant he had hired during his child star years
on The Breakfast Club.
Thompson said that the accountant hadn't been paying his taxes
for him.
Instead, he'd been enriching himself with Thompsons hard earned money
to the tune of
$1.5 million. We gave that dude power of attorney when
we shouldn't have.
Yeah, I was a kid and my mom was trying
to protect me.
Thompson took the shady accountant to court and won his
case after a year's long legal battle.
However, he never recovered the money he lost.
And I knew it as soon as it happened,
you know what I'm saying?
I'm like, I ain't never going to see that money.
Because the IRS demanded what it was owed,
Thompson was forced to file for bankruptcy.
It was the worst possible time for a savings to
vanish as he was transitioning from being a successful child
actor to auditioning for adult roles and having little luck.
He told NP Rs Fresh Air that he had to
do some couch surfing while he desperately searched for work,
and he even found it difficult to scrounge up enough
money to pay for fast food,
he said on the show.
It's humbling when you know people in the McDonald's drive
through line recognize you,
and then they also recognize that you're paying for a
meal would change.
Thompson usually seems so confident and carefree when he's exercising
his comedic muscles,
but he's admitted to feeling insecure about his appearance and
uncomfortable with the way others treat him.
Because of his size and his memoir,
When I Was Your Age,
life lessons, funny stories, and questionable advice from a professional
clown,
he reveals that his body image issues began when he
was just a kid,
when he played a boy spending his summer at a
weight loss camp.
In the 1995 film Heavyweights,
Thompson says that he felt exploited.
He also disliked filming a shirtless scene.
In the 2008 comedy Wieners on the Blocks podcast,
Thompson revealed that he also has a judgmental inner monologue
that chastises him when he's not eating healthy enough.
It's like, yo, what are you doing,
bro? You know what I'm saying?
Yeah, look at yourself. Like,
take all your clothes off and look at yourself.
The actor shared that he also worries about not being
physically active enough,
especially during the winter months.
Thompson explained that he likes to exercise outdoors because it
feels more like play,
and he hates the monotony of stationary bikes and treadmills.
For my mind, it's just torture.
Joaquin and Thompson's years on the Nickelodeon show All that
made him seem like a shoo in for a spot
on Saturday Night Live.
He endured a lot of rejection before getting the gig,
he told Vanity Fair. I kept sending tapes when I
first left Nickelodeon and I was like,
I would like to graduate now and they'd say,
you look a little young,
check back with us. His youthful appearance didn't just keep
him from getting his dream job.
He also spent a lot of time trying to convince
casting directors that he was ready to work on projects
that weren't aimed at kids,
he told Variety. I was just surviving one of the
millions of people out out here in Los Angeles that
are paying their bills however they can.
When Thompson finally got a chance to audition for SNL,
he had to perform a stand up routine despite having
no background as a stand up comedian,
he told Vanity Fair. I didn't know how to engage
the audience.
Everybody was just kind of lost from what I was
doing.
Luckily, he got another shot to prove himself.
In 2013, a classic case of misinterpreted celeb musings threatened
Keenan Thompson's nice guy image.
The actor got blasted for what he said to TV
Guide about the lack of black female cast members on
Saturday Night Live.
He told the publication. They just never find ones that
are ready.
At the time, Thompson was dressing in drag to play
black female characters on SNL,
and he was ready to hang up his long wigs
and clip on earrings for good.
Leslie Jones was one of the female comics who was
offended by Thompson's words,
she said of his interview.
He should come battle me.
Give me 10 minutes. And ruined his life.
Thompson would have to keep explaining himself for years.
In 2021, he told Variety that his critics had misunderstood
him.
He wasn't saying black women weren't funny.
He meant that there needed to be more improv opportunities
out there for black female comedians to better prepare them
for SNL.
The backlash really seemed to bother Thompson,
he said On Jamel, Hill is unbothered that the accusations
hurt his feelings.
Like, why would I bring my sisters down like that?
You know what I'm saying?
My Queens In April 2022,
Thompson and actor Christina Evangeline announced that they were getting
divorced.
The couple was married for 11 years and shared two
daughters,
an insider told Us Weekly.
They really just grew apart and wanted different things.
There's nothing juicy about why they split.
The couple reportedly separated at the end of 2020,
but Thompson was still talking about Evangeline as if they
were together when he spoke to Parade in January
2022. At the time, he was busy promoting his show
Keenan.