Keke Palmer is baring her soul amid family difficulties.
The multi-hyphenate star hosted the 2023 BET Soul Train Awards on Sunday and delivered a performance of her recent emotional breakup song “Ungorgeous” about two weeks after she was granted a temporary restraining order against ex Darius Jackson in the midst of a custody battle.
Dressed in a white lace negligee and matching robe on a penthouse-like set, Palmer, 30, performed the vulnerable song off her Big Boss deluxe album, which features lyrics about a romantic partner who no longer makes her feel good about herself.
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“You used to tell me I’m beautiful / Now I don’t even know no more / It’s like you’re tryna be difficult / You never used to do this before / You make me feel so ungorgeous,” she sings on the track.
After posting a teaser on TikTok in August, Palmer performed “Ungorgeous” on her Big Boss Tour throughout September before its official release on Big Boss (Deluxe) last month. During her concert at New York City’s Webster Hall, she said the song was recorded “about 12 years ago” but feels pertinent to her life today.
“We don’t like to go through hard times. We don’t like to go through ups and downs and the ways that life takes us, but boy, when we do, do we have a testimony,” she said of the song’s personal meaning on stage at the time.
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“For me, so much has happened since I did that song,” Palmer, who shares 8-month-old son Leodis “Leo” Adrellton with Jackson, explained at the show. “I mean, I got a baby, I turned 30. I got a family. You know, I’ve experienced things.”
The Nope star continued, “We wanna be so happy all the time and keep everything so bottled up, but it’s not true. It’s like that movie Inside Out — you gotta let it go to get through it! And for me, that’s what ‘Ungorgeous’ is. It’s an opportunity to say, ‘Hey, I’m just not feeling it,’ and to share it with you guys, it means a lot because if you know how that feels, let me get an ‘Amen.’”
Earlier this month, Palmer filed a request for a domestic violence restraining order against him in Los Angeles. Palmer asked the court for full physical and legal custody of Leo, detailing multiple allegations of physical abuse in the filing, according to documents reviewed by PEOPLE.
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In response to the emergency filing, the Los Angeles County judge granted a temporary restraining order stating that Jackson must stay at least 100 yards away from both the actress and their son, as well as any childcare or schooling established for the infant.
In addition to granting Palmer temporary sole physical and legal custody of Leo, the temporary restraining order states that Jackson is not allowed to have visitation with his son, with a hearing set for Dec. 5 to determine further action on the temporary arrangement.
Jackson seemed to address the situation later that day, sharing a photo of himself holding Leo in a post on X (formerly known as Twitter) from an account that has since been deleted. “I love you, son. See you soon,” he captioned the shot.
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Reps and lawyers for Palmer have not responded to multiple requests from PEOPLE for comment. A rep for Jackson had no comment when reached by PEOPLE.
The pair’s issues briefly went public in July when Jackson called her out for wearing a fitted, black bodysuit under a sheer dress to watch Usher perform at his Las Vegas residency.
“We live in a generation where a man of the family doesn’t want the wife & mother to his kids to showcase booty cheeks to please others & he gets told how much of a hater he is,” Jackson wrote in one since-deleted tweet. “This is my family & my representation. I have standards & morals to what I believe. I rest my case.”
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Palmer told PEOPLE in October that she felt the need to make changes in how transparent she’s willing to be with the public on social media.
“I’m having my own personal boundaries for what I feel like I want out there or what I want to give people the opportunity to speak on,” Palmer said.
If you are experiencing domestic violence, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or go to thehotline.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.
