Keke Palmer is convinced she would have won American Idol

Appearing on Hot Ones, Keke was asked by host Sean Evans which reality show she believes she could win and replied: "I know for a fact, if it was at the right time, the right era, your girl would've been an American Idol.

"Oh yeah! I would've been up there with my girl Fantasia [Barrino]. Not her season though, 'cause she would've beaten me. But I would've been up in there, I know I could've made it at some point."

The 32-year-old actress has spent time thinking about the emotional story she would tell to win people over.

She said: "I had a storyline. "I'm from Chicago, my mom was a singer growing up, I grew up in church...

"You get what I mean? 'Cause you had to have that back in the day. You needed that storyline. I would've ate the damn America up."

Keke then gave a glimpse into her imaginary appearance on the talent show.

She said: "Oh my gosh, I would've been crying like."

She then paused to give an impression of a final riff before turning to an invisible judging panel and said: "Thank you. You know, I always thought I could be an American Idol."

She added to Sean: "And I feel like I would've been an American Idol."

While Keke shot to fame as an actress, she later released her debut album, So Uncool, before moving to Interscope Records and then Island Records for a series of singles and mix tapes, but previously admitted she found it "stifling" to work with a major record label.

Speaking in 2023, when she released her album Big Boss and launched her own label, Big Bosses Entertainment, she told People magazine: "It was just really stifling.

"I learned a lot of stuff just about what I really needed as an artist, which was artist development. I really spent a lot of those years figuring out what went wrong or why things weren't connecting for me as an artist.

"I think with labels, there isn't any artist development. A lot of times they'll try stuff to throw stuff out, then it doesn't work and it's your fault. They don't really support the artists in being able to discover how to share their voice.

"I'm talented, I can sing, I can perform, I can do all that, but knowing how to present that to the world, there's still an art to that. My experience with labels taught me that I had to figure that out because they weren't able to really help me with it."