MINISODE: ELLIE KEMPER & THE WTF BALL

You've probably never heard of the Veiled Prophet Ball. Actress Ellie Kemper definitely wishes she hadn't at this point. The gist - it's a twisted southern debutante/racist rich white person party that started in the late 1800s. Kemper was crowned the ball's Veiled Prophet Queen of Love and Beauty in 1999. After photos surfaced recently, Kemper apologized for her involvement. We're not really throwing shade on Kemper so much as we are the ball itself and the white lady involvement from the beginning. What do you get when you put a clown in a KKK outfit? The Veiled Prophet. Stuff of nightmares. Thanks to Scott Beauchamp's article in The Atlantic and Mia Mercado and Claire Lampen's article in The Cut for helping us learn about this bonkers tradition. Of course, we go down rabbit holes into Orientalism and labor strikes, because why not?