Each year, one member was secretly chosen to play the Veiled Prophet, whose identity was masked with a literal veil. Members' daughters were often picked as the ball's Queen of Love and Beauty.

The ball is run by the Veiled Prophet Organization, an all-male club formed in 1878 by upper-class white people in St. Louis in response to a protest by railroad workers.

Fact Check: Ellie Kemper, the KKK, and the 'Veiled Prophet Ball' The actor's ties to a controversial St. Louis debutante ball were unearthed in a 1999 photograph.

The Veiled Prophet as illustrated in an 1878 edition of the Missouri Republican. (Public Domain) After 140 years, 2021 might be the end of the Veiled Prophet in public life. For 40 years, St ...

Ellie Kemper ’s apologized this week for attending the Veiled Prophet debutante ball when she was 19, where she was crowned the “Queen of Love and Beauty”.

Ellie Kemper’s apologized this week for attending the Veiled Prophet debutante ball when she was 19, where she was crowned the “Queen of Love and Beauty”. But for Kemper’s apology to have ...

Ellie Kemper’s apologized this week for attending the Veiled Prophet debutante ball when she was 19, where she was crowned the “Queen of Love and Beauty”. But for Kemper’s apology to have any real ...

Most notably, Percy Green and fellow activists from his Action organization covertly infiltrated the ball in 1972 and unmasked that year’s Veiled Prophet, Tom K. Smith, a senior executive with ...

The Veiled Prophet Organization put out its own statement saying it “acknowledges our past and recognizes the criticism levied our way.” The statement said that the organization today ...

In 1999, 19-year-old Ellie Kemper participated in the century-old tradition hosted by the Veiled Prophet Organization — a secretive and exclusive society run for decades by wealthy White families.