So No One Likes Keegan-Michael Key's Wife (Allegedly)

It’s a couple of days old now, but there’s a video going around right now from comedian Akilah Hughes, titled “Explaining the Gap in My Resume,” which she performed at a Brooklyn storytelling show. It’s long. Trust me, it’s worth it.

Hughes doesn’t use real names. For legal reasons, she refers to the people in her story by code names. But it’s obvious she’s talking about Keegan-Michael Key, Jordan Peele, and Disney. The short version is this: Hughes developed a sketch show, got Keegan-Michael Key attached as a producer, and landed a deal with Disney. Things looked great. Then Keegan-Michael Key’s Wife got added as an executive producer. While Keegan-Michael Key was off filming Charlie and the Chocolate Factory things stopped looking so great.

According to Hughes, the creative contributions to the project from Elle Key included the following notes: “Comedy comes in threes.” “The letter K is funny.” And, perhaps most inexplicable, “Give the audience some candy.” OK, sure. When these notes were not enthusiastically received, the situation escalated. A lawsuit was threatened. Disney apparently paid out to make it go away, which had the added consequence of making everything Hughes and Keegan-Michael Key had developed legally untouchable. She had to start from scratch. Then the 2023 writers’ strike happened. Then the network pulled the plug entirely.

Messy, right. But that’s hardly it. Hughes also shares that before all of this went down, she received a phone call from Peele’s wife, Chelsea Peretti, who called, she said, because she wished someone had warned her. Peretti allegedly described Elle Key as being “like Phil Hartman’s wife.” In case you’ve forgotten, Brynn Hartman shot Phil Hartman and then herself in 1998.

Not a flattering comparison.

She also describes an incident involving a decorative eucalyptus tree at a restaurant, an alleged allergic reaction, and the subsequent discovery that the plant was, uh, plastic. There are also anonymous DeuxMoi corroborations that Hughes reads aloud mid-story. There are also people in the comments of her video claiming to have worked with Elle Key and posting only a cringe emoji.

So, not a well-liked woman. And Hughes’ suggests that not only is Elle Key the reason why Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele don’t work together anymore, but the reason why Keegan Michael-Key’s career has basically been reduced to frequent commercial pitchman.

Anyway, you’re probably doing an image search of Elle Key right now and shaking your head, murmuring to yourself, “Yeah. That tracks.”

The whole video is worth watching.