Actress Ellie Kemper is taking fire on social media after images resufaced showing her as queen of a high society ball with a racist past in her hometown of St. Louis when she was 19.
The event, known as St. Louis' Veiled Prophet Ball, is run by an organization that did not allow Blacks to join for its first century, and has been linked circumstantially to the Ku Klux Klan.
The Klan notion dates to a report in the Missouri Republican in 1878, the year the event was founded. The Republican published an image of the Veiled Prophet, in white robe and matching hood, and noted its resemblance to a Klansman, The Sun reported.
Kemper, who is 41, was selected as Queen of the ball in 1999, according the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Kemper is known for portraying receptionist Erin Hannon in the American version of "The Office" TVshow, as well as the title character in the Netflix series "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt."
"Ellie Kemper being a KKK princess is so random that I'm not even sure where to begin with the questions," one person tweeted, later noting that the event and board was not "technically KKK" but "a group of powerful white people who work to uphold class and race supremacy while putting on weird and creepy festivals."
"The deeper you go down the Ellie Kemper rabbit hole the weirder it gets. Apparently, she's part of some fringe KKK cult that has pagents and balls, but also supports segregation and pedophilia," another Twitter user wrote.
"LOLOL just saw the #EllieKemper stuff and as a St. Louis native, I am delighted the entire world now knows about the bizarre cult that only the rich white kids in my high school knew about," a third tweeted.
Not all of social media was against Kemper though. Other Twitter users were quick to defend her.
"Ellie Kemper is a good friend and a wonderful human being. The pageant has awful roots and the focus should be on that," one tweeted.
“I met Ellie in 02 & I have only seen her treat everyone with exceptional kindness & respect. And being NYC, this included people of all backgrounds and lifestyles. At 19 she likely wasn’t mature enough to be independent of family tradition or aware of the full import," another wrote.
The Veiled Prophet Ball, renamed Fair Saint Louis in 1992, was established by former Confederate cavalryman Charles Slayback, who called a meeting with local business and civic leaders with the intent of establishing a secret society, according to The Sun. Over the years, the meeting became a ritual in which a member of the board was selected to play the role of the Veiled Prophet, who would choose a "Queen of Love and Beauty.”
The board came under scrutiny in the '70s for not allowing Blacks to join, and the rule was dropped in 1979.
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Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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