Elllie Kemper’s Veiled Prophet Ball “absolutely rejects racism” after the fan backlash over their rumored “ties to KKK.”
During the Memorial Day weekend, accusations were aimed at the Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt star, Ellie Kemper, who was allegedly involved in a debutant’s ball with an alleged racist past.
The Veiled Prophet Organization has stepped forward to defend their event.
The group exclusively told The Celeb Report: “We absolutely reject racism and have never partnered or associated with any organization that harbors these beliefs.”
The Veiled Prophet Organization has dedicated itself to the “civic progress, economic contributions and charitable causes in St. Louis.”
In their commitment to supporting St. Louis over the past 143 years, the Veiled Prophet Organization has annually hosted “dozens of community service projects” and donated “tens of thousands of dollars and service hours to support a variety of charity partners,” which included Beyond Housing, Mission, St. Louis, Missouri Veterans Endeavor, North Side Community School, Promise Community Homes, Brightside St. Louis, and Forest Park Forever.
The statement from the VP organization continued: “Making many significant infrastructure and cultural gifts to the City, including lighting of the Eads Bridge, the Mississippi River Overlook and the mile-long Riverfront Promenade, and partnering in providing the Grand Staircase beneath the Arch as part of the National Park System and to the irrigation system as part of Forest Park Forever.”
The America’s Birthday Parade and Fair St. Louis have reflected “the diversity of the St. Louis community” and included “a wide variety of partners,” such as PrideFest and the Annie Malone Parade.
An employee has also stepped forward to defend the actress – and the event.
An employee of what was formerly known as the Veiled Prophet Ball exclusively told The Celeb Report: “It’s 130, almost 140-year-old organization. And I don’t believe any organization that is 50 to 100 years old looks anything like it did originally.”
“We, the organization, back in the late 50s, early 60s made a concerted effort based on the premise that you cannot serve the community unless that entire community is represented in the organization. And so I think the organization is reflective of the community and the makeup of the community,” the source explains.
The source noted Ellie’s participation in the event in 1999 was decades after the organization’s efforts to reflect the accurate makeup of the St. Louis community, and added that she participated well beyond any potentially problematic point in its history.
The Celeb Report has reached out to Ellie’s reps for comment.
The source continued to explain the current charitable nature of the organization, which is now called Fair St. Louis.
“So much of the energies of this organization are focused on community service and have given huge projects or gifts to the city and to various agencies, who I’m sure would be more than happy to stand up and validate that”
The event’s name changed several times over the years, from Veiled Prophet Ball to the VP Parade to its current moniker, Fair St. Louis.
The timing of the event has also changed from late December to being held during the week of Independence Day, however the ball was last held in 2019, presumably due to COVID-19 restrictions.
The Fair St. Louis employee continued: “This is an organization whose members are St. Louis families, who have been in business in St. Louis for many years.
Since its founding, the organization was created to do something positive, and help make St. Louis a better place to live.”
As far as storied past of Veiled Prophet Ball, the source contended: “The theory, that the organization was steeped in racism is a theory that stems from a book that was an overreach of somebody’s doctoral thesis. That’s a hypothesis that someone’s presenting, but based on the history that I know, I do not agree with it.”
Ellie came under intense scrutiny over the holiday weekend after fans discovered that The Office star had been crowned queen of what was quickly coined as a “racist” ball.
The star, born in Kansas, started trending on Twitter yesterday after fans found a picture of her as Queen of controversial St Louis’ Veiled Prophet Ball in 1999.
Twitter users flocked to comment on the photo, some to “call out” Ellie for “racist links” from being dubbed Queen of Love and Beauty and others highlighted the importance of facts before jumping on the trend.
One user said: “People are really trying to make the case that this ‘tradition’ Ellie Kemper participated in wasn’t created by the klan or at least klan adjacent?”
Another agreed: “It really is something that Ellie Kemper was the star of a tv show about a woman who leaves a racist cult and tries to rebrand herself while pretending it never happened. No reason why I’m bringing this up of course.”
But others quickly defended her. One said: “I spent ten years of my life in St. Louis (including the time she’s talking about) and I’m familiar with the Veiled Prophet Ball — even knew people who attended it. I’m pretty sure as far as we knew it was just a debutante ball for the society folks.”
Another said: “To be accurate, the Veiled Prophet Ball is an event run by classist (and admittedly likely racist) ultra wealthy families in St. Louis and it is quite the stretch to call Ellie a so-called ‘KKK princess’ based on her selection as queen in 1999.”
Every Fourth of July, downtown St. Louis would come alive with music, hot-air balloons, and fireworks, and food for the St Louis Fair, which was formerly known as the Veiled Prophet Ball until the early 1990s, The Atlantic reported.
It started in 1878 when grain executive and former Confederate cavalryman Charles Slayback called for a meeting of local business and civic leaders.
His intention formed a secret society that blended the pomp and ritual of a New Orleans Mardi Gras.
It turned into an elaborate ritual where someone from a secret board of local elites would be chosen to anonymously play the role of the Veiled Prophet.
The Veiled Prophet would choose a “Queen of Love and Beauty,” which Ellie was selected as at the age 19, from among the elite ball attendees with whom he would dance a “Royal Quadrille” before he presented her with an expensive keepsake ,such as a tiara or pearls.
The fair had been long-associated with its secretive nature and “elitism,” as historian Thomas Spencer explained: “The parade and all its pomp was meant to reinforce the values of the elite on the working class of the city,” however there is no evidence of a direct link to the KKK.
But the 1878 edition of the Missouri Republican showed a picture of the Veiled Prophet with a striking resemblance to a Klansman.
In the early seventies, the fair was crashed by protesters, the Action Committee to Improve Opportunities for Negroes, who had been campaigning to abolish the ball that “flaunted its wealth in front of the city’s poorest residents”.
And as was the case for most of the Deep South at the time, racial segregation was rampant and the Veiled Prophet would not allow Black members to join until 1979, which further incensed protestors at the time.
