Even “tenuous” is too strong a word for the nonexistent link between Kemper and the KKK. The Veiled Prophet ball is an old St. Louis tradition that was founded in 1878 by an ex-Confederate, but it isn’t linked to the Klan. A hooded costume worn at the first ball looked like the outfit later adopted by Klansmen more than twenty years later; first-generation Klansmen didn’t have a uniform. Essentially the VP ball was just a party where rich people celebrated themselves, dolled up with silly details meant to make it seem mystical. If you lived in St. Louis, you’d be bored, too. The more eccentric aspects of the VP ball were dropped one by one and it became a Fourth of July party. The stories got going after some excitable person on Twitter contrived a link between Kemper and the Klan over the picture of her being crowned “Prophet Queen” in the 1999 ball, when she was 19. “i mean ….. ellie kemper was apparently crowned in a legit kkk beauty pageant,” wrote one user. “So no one gonna tell me Ellie Kemper aka kimmy Schmidt was crowned KKK queen in 1999,” wrote someone else. “Ellie Kemper being a KKK princess is so random I’m not even sure to begin with the questions,” wrote a third.