Keegan-Michael Key Says It’s a ‘Tragedy’ He Doesn’t See Jordan Peele

Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele Unique Nicole/Getty Images

One half of Key & Peele, Keegan-Michael Key, has revealed that he doesn’t see Jordan Peele “that often anymore.”

In an interview with People, published on Saturday, September 21, Key, 53, said that while he and Peele, 45, were “sharing a mind” when they teamed up to create Comedy Central’s Key & Peele sketch series in 2012, the pair have since drifted apart.

“Which is, to me, a tragedy,” Key told the outlet before adding that “your lives start to evolve and move in different directions.”

Key & Peele wrapped on Comedy Central in 2015 and in the almost-decade that has passed, Peele and his actress-wife, Chelsea Peretti, built a home in Los Angeles. Meanwhile, Key and his producer wife, Elle, reside in New York City.

Key explained further, “Our evolution, I think, is tied to both of what our desires are. His desire was to start exploring the horror genre, and my desire was to do more dramatic work like I had been trained in school. Both of us jumped to another platform.”

The comedy duo first gained acclaim when they joined Fox’s MADtv in 2004. Key told the outlet that the pair lived together as they developed their professional partnership.

“We lived together for a few months and would write and talk about comedy — who we liked and why we liked them and how that worked in the architecture of what we were trying to build comedically,” Key said, adding that he and Peele “shared a creative language” and that their chemistry “was alchemy.”

Keegan-Michael Key John Phillips/Getty Images for Paramount Pictures

The comedians saw incredible success as a paired entity, picking up two Emmy awards for Key & Peele including the award for Outstanding Variety Sketch Series in 2026 and another that year for Outstanding Makeup achievements. The duo received 18 Emmy nominations in total over the years.

Beyond the acclaim they received for Key & Peele, the pair starred alongside one another in season 1 of FX’s Fargo, produced and starred together in 2016’s action-comedy film Keanu, and also voiced characters in 2019’s Toy Story 4 and 2022’s Wendell & Wild films.

Key is now starring in the animated film Transformers One, with other characters voiced by Chris Hemsworth and Scarlett Johansson.

As for Peele, he has found individual success in creating 2017’s Get Out, 2019’s Us, and 2022’s Nope. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Peele’s next filmmaking project will likely be a horror film given its scheduled release date is October 23 2026.

Get Out scored Peele an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in 2017, when he became the first African American to ever win in that category.