Beyoncé honored by Keke Palmer for EW's 2024 Entertainers of the Year

America doesn't have royalty but we do have Queen Bey. At this point in her career, the crown is secure and there's nothing left to prove, yet Beyoncé continues to push herself and, as all the greats do, to push her contemporaries. After the disco/dance/house masterpiece Renaissance and its subsequent world tour, Bey completely shifted gears with Cowboy Carter, an album deftly mixing country, Americana, rock and roll, bluegrass, and other Southern styles of music. For the woman who once intoned, "The best revenge is your paper," Cowboy Carter was a response to the hostility Beyoncé faced at the Country Music Association Awards in 2016. The album, then, is a celebration of the African American contribution to that and other genres, and the revenge is in the receipts. Nominated for 11 Grammys, the second most of any album ever (behind only Thriller), Cowboy Carter set a number of records and spawned the first No. 1 country hit by a Black woman, "Texas Hold 'Em."

Multi-hyphenate and fellow Virgo Keke Palmer is always busy, whether paying tribute to Usher at the BET Awards over the summer, guest judging on RuPaul's Drag Race, hosting Password, providing the voice of Dr. Klak on The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy or Maya on The Proud Family, or giving J.Lo a hand in her Prime Video musical. She released her second studio album, Big Boss, last year and has no less than three films in pre-production slated for release next year, and released her New York Times best-selling book Master of Me in November. And still, the Emmy winner found time to pay tribute to Queen Bey.

EW Entertainers of the Year 2024: Beyoncé by Keke Palmer — Beyoncé: Johnny Nunez/Getty Images for The Recording Academy; Palmer: Monica Schipper/WireImage

The first time I met Beyoncé, Tyler James Williams and I presented her with the Outstanding Female Artist Award at the NAACP’s the year that Dreamgirls opened. Outstanding is a perfect description that also somehow feels like an understatement when it comes to Beyoncé. Her success this year with Cowboy Carter is undeniable, and her 11 Grammy nominations for it — now 99 overall — are just another distinction that demonstrates she is in a league of her own.

The thing that really spoke to me while listening to Cowboy Carter is how Beyoncé always bravely expresses her attempt to put her best foot forward. That's something I relate to, and it’s deeply humanizing. Most artists want to portray strength and struggles, triumph over hardship, the meaning of love and sacrifice…all of the human experiences that we all can relate to. What sets the depth of her work apart for me is her message of, “Whatever I'm going through personally, I want to show compassion, I want to show love, I want to have grace, I want to be forgiving of others and myself.” She's been able to convey that profoundly in both Renaissance and Cowboy Carter. In Renaissance, it’s about empowerment and beauty and love and saying, “I’m a queen…but I’m also human,” which sets up Cowboy Carter, where she is saying, “Let me tell you just how human I am.”

Fabulous is a word that comes to mind when I think of Beyoncé. She is larger than life yet can express her vulnerability. She is also brave and fearless and finds a way to translate that combination into lyrics, visuals, and a persona that quite literally inspires her fans to be their best and strongest selves.

Beyoncé doesn't take no for an answer — in a good way. She always finds ways to reach her artistic goals and push forward with music videos and formats that never look tired, never worn out, always aspirational. She creates entire worlds that include the fans and their reactions in the immersive equation.

In crossing genres into country with Cowboy Carter, Beyoncé has proven that there are simply no rules — I love and appreciate life’s reality that sometimes you have to do it your own way. And Beyoncé has never rested on her star; she always works the hardest and pushes the farthest to achieve a vision. She takes pride in the fact that she's Beyoncé, but remains humble. She is undoubtedly a boss who has earned that distinction through the way she has handled ups and downs both personally and publicly — but she always overcomes any adversity from her position of acceptance. I think that’s encouraging to anybody who feels like they have something to say and they want to be loud about it but they think people might not understand. Beyoncé has shown that it’s okay to stand alone, and that sometimes, standing alone gives others who are scared the courage to stand up beside you.

I was at her birthday concert during the Renaissance tour, and the thing that really struck me (aside from the unparalleled production quality) was the vibes — Beyoncé is incredible at that. Her connection to her fans is visceral. She knows what to do to get the crowd going, to get them excited and engaged. I loved the whole production, the performances, the narrative, the ballroom elements, the aesthetic that she put into that tour, which was somehow different from what she’s done before but also on the nose in that signature Beyoncé kind of way. I was moved, inspired, and completely entertained. There is no place like the Beyhive — and no artist or human quite like our singularly fabulous outstanding Queen.

—As told to Gerrad Hall