Nepo is the new normal: How the kids of Hollywood A-listers started getting real and stopped fighting their family name

Yahoo

5 days ago

If you can't escape the shadow, step into it. That's the new way of the Hollywood nepo baby.
Take Jack Henry Robbins, son of Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins, for example. He just landed a Hulu comedy series, aptly titled Nepo Baby, based on the viral character he created satirizing his own life as the child of celebrities. The series will riff on the nepo baby phenomenon popularized by New York magazine's 2022 cover story, which spotlighted how the children of stars often have a head start in Hollywood compared to those without connections.
Jack, 36, wrote on Instagram that the character he created "was born from my deepest insecurity." However, embracing the role of "the world's worst nepo baby" — with assists from his parents and Steven Spielberg's daughter Sasha, who appeared in the social media series — "changed my life."
Ireland Baldwin, daughter of Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger and an aspiring screenwriter, was quick to quip in the comments section, "I'm available."
We've entered a nepo baby era that sees the latest crop of famous offspring embrace their lineages with a healthy dose of self-awareness. Like Ava Phillippe, daughter of Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Phillippe, who recently got behind the "holy freakin' airball" TikTok trend, where people share an incorrect assumption followed by a humblebrag. The brand ambassador/model/aspiring actress flexed about her mother's role as Elle Woods in Legally Blonde. The nepos, it seems, are exhibiting signs of acceptance, marking a noticeable shift from the Hollywood "nepo-verse" strongly opposing the label not so long ago.
A cool nickname
Hollywood has always been a famous family business. Michael Douglas, Jane Fonda, Jamie Lee Curtis, Ben Stiller, Gwyneth Paltrow and Robert Downey Jr. have last names that carry weight in the entertainment industry, with the pedigree to back it up. Their lineages were never a secret — nor were those of Kate Hudson, Angelina Jolie or Isabella Rossellini.
But amid a broader cultural reckoning with privilege and access, a more blinding spotlight was shone on the connections of the younger crop of connected stars. Lily-Rose Depp, Jack Quaid, Zoë Kravitz, Maya Hawke, Maude Apatow, Kendall Jenner, Hailey Bieber and Kaia Gerber have all been dubbed "nepo babies" for their A-list relations.
Yes, talent can run in a family, but so can connections. While these young stars have chops, they also have built-in access to agents and casting directors that the typical aspiring performer doesn't. Even if a nepo baby doesn't use a parent's connections directly, their last name alone provides intrigue, inviting them in the door that's closed for most everyone else. That's something not offered to the typical aspiring actor who's traveled to Hollywood with nothing.
Are they under harsher scrutiny than the nepo babies before them? Definitely. In this age of 24/7 news coverage and social media, audiences are aware of their connections and New York magazine gave that awareness a name (or 'ugly moniker,' as Paltrow dubbed it).
After all, culturally, entertainment consumers bear some blame for the public's long-running interest in star kids. Since some of them were born, they were staked out by paparazzi at the playground with their images filtered to celebrity magazines and websites. We've long been fascinated by them.
Plus, we're in an era of Hollywood where originality is increasingly rare. Most movies are largely sequels, franchises or based on a popular toy, book or video game. In this risk-averse industry, the nepo baby fits right in. Instead of being an "unknown" talent, they come in already familiar to audiences. We've watched many of them grow up, seen them on red carpets with their famous parents. There's no need for introductions.
Cue the outrage
How the nepo babies responded to the branding was of their own successful or failed PR plan.
At this point, practically everyone has been asked about it, but soon after the publication of the New York cover story, Lily-Rose Depp, the actress daughter of Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis, faced criticism for not "getting it."
"People are going to have preconceived ideas about you or how you got there, and I can definitely say that nothing is going to get you the part except for being right for the part," The Idol actress told Elle in 2022. "The internet cares a lot more about who your family is than the people who are casting you in things. Maybe you get your foot in the door, but you still just have your foot in the door. There's a lot of work that comes after that."
Kendall Jenner, the model daughter of Kris Jenner and Caitlyn Jenner, was also called out of touch after she said that while she's "one of the luckiest people on the planet to be able to live the life that I live. … I do think that it's challenging for me a lot more than it's not."
Zoë Kravitz, the actress/director daughter of Lenny Kravitz and Lisa Bonet, was also called tone deaf for her comments about it being "completely normal for people to be in the family business. It's literally where last names came from. You were a blacksmith if your family was, like, the Black family."
Theater Camp star Ben Platt, son of Legally Blonde producer Marc Platt, wouldn't even answer a question about being a nepo baby in 2023. His publicist intervened.
Embracing the bloodline
Amid the nepo backlash, Hailey Bieber — daughter of Stephen Baldwin and now wife of Justin Bieber — leaned into the controversy by wearing a shirt proudly bearing the label in 2023. She later told the Sunday Times, "That was me being, like, 'I'm very aware of the situation [and] I'm going to wear it loud and proud because you are already labeling me as such and it's true.'"
Over the last year, as the nepo-ness of it all has settled, there's been more of an embrace of it by some.
While Dakota Johnson, daughter of Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith, finds the whole conversation "annoying," "boring" and "lame," she did playfully parody it on Saturday Night Live, offering herself up as the punchline.
She also recently talked about how her dad cut her off when she didn't get into Juilliard and she had to pound the pavement a bit.
"It was hard to make money. There were a few times when I'd go to the market and not have money in my bank account or not be able to pay rent." The granddaughter of Hollywood royalty Tippi Hedren added, "I'd have to ask my parents for help."
Patrick Schwarzenegger has called the label "frustrating" and talked about the "hundreds of rejected auditions" he had before landing his revealing White Lotus role. But then in June, he did an about-face, leaning into his scion status by doing a joint Variety interview with his dad and discussing — yes — nepotism.
"There were times earlier in my career where I was wondering, does it make sense to go under an alias?" Patrick, son of Maria Shriver, admitted. Arnold said he was surprised to learn how difficult a time Patrick had because of his last name, saying, "To me, the name 'Schwarzenegger' always meant a big plus."
Allison Williams, daughter of newsman Brian Williams, is also among the more self-aware nepo babies. The Girls alum told the Guardian, "Aside from all the many layers of privilege, high on the list is the fact that I could pursue a career in acting without being worried that I wasn't going to be able to feed myself."
Kaia Gerber, the actress/model daughter of Cindy Crawford and Rande Gerber, told WSJ last year, "I don't think it's a topic that will go away, so I've clearly reached a point of acceptance. I personally am very aware of all the wonderful things it has done for me, and I would never, ever say anything negative about it, because that is my truth about it."
Her nepo baby boyfriend, Lewis Pullman, the son of Bill Pullman, also acknowledged that his father's fame allowed him many chances to "get comfortable in front of a camera" because it took him a long time to get there.
However, part of it was trying to live up to his father's reputation. The Thunderbolts* actor said, "I felt a lot of pressure to fill his shoes. Once I realized that it was an impossible pair of shoes to fill, I kind of found a sense of relief in knowing that if there was any future for me in film that it would be by doing it my own way and trying to blaze my own trail."
'We're still talking about it'
After their early comments on the topic weren't well-received, nepo babies adopted a new PR strategy. They've been owning the label more, so they're less weaponized by it.
Besides, nearly three years after the New York article came out, the conversation about nepotism in Hollywood isn't going anywhere — just ask the guy who wrote the story.
"We definitely knew we were going to cause a stir when we published the story," Vulture features writer Nate Jones tells Yahoo. "You don't Photoshop celebrities' heads onto babies without thinking it'll have some impact."
"As far as 2025 goes," he continues, "I don't know if I was thinking that far ahead. But it makes sense that we're still talking about it, because this is a situation that can never really be resolved. On an individual level, nobody is actually doing anything wrong: It's not wrong to want to go into the same field as your parents, or to want your child to follow in your footsteps. It's only when you zoom out to the macro level that it becomes this conversation about wealth and privilege. And obviously structural inequality hasn't gone away in just three years, so it makes sense there's still some resentment towards them."
Jones says he's been heartened to see some celebrities start to embrace it. "I feel like there was some hand-wringing in the nepo community after our story was published, like: What are we supposed to do? And I think that a few of them have started to model the best way to handle it, which is to be up front about it," he says. "You've just got to accept it and not be defensive. Because it's the being defensive that really brings the knives out."
Jones says it's been "hard not to keep up with" the cultural conversation around nepo babies, "especially because a lot of very kind friends and acquaintances have the misconception that I invented the term [and] send me a link anytime it comes up."
However, while he helped popularize the term, he didn't coin it — and he doesn't want it becoming part of his identity either.
"Just like a nepo baby doesn't want to only be known as a nepo baby, I don't want to become the 'nepo baby guy,'" Jones says. "After the story blew up, I would get people asking me if I wanted to write a nepo baby book, and that was a no from me. I feel like I've said all I have to say on the subject. Or, 'almost all,'" he says. "I did respond to you, after all."
But the conversation isn't fading, it's shifting. These stars didn't choose the nepo life and they're not fighting the label as hard as they once did. And with Hollywood still making space for them, why would they?
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