While many celebrity spawn prove themselves to be quite capable once they’ve gotten their foot easily in the door, acknowledging that they got help to get there goes a long way in maintaining a positive image—comparing, for example, Jamie Lee Curtis, who is candid about being the daughter of movie stars benefiting her career, to one Kim Kardashian, who infamously said more women need to “get up and fking work.” Check out some of the most famous (or notorious!) Hollywood nepo babies, and remember: It’s great to be talented, but it’s a lot easier to be wealthy and connected. Next, find out which star believes nepo babies have to work even harder in Hollywood than those who started at the bottom. “It’s completely normal for people to be in the family business,” Zoë previously told GQ. “It’s literally where last names came from. You were a blacksmith if your family was, like, the Black family.” Lenny, meanwhile, is the son of The Jeffersons star Roxie Roker and film producer Sy Kravitz—though when he was coming up in the industry, he initially used the pseudonym “Romeo Blue” to distance himself from his showbiz pedigree. “I try not to let it get to me because I obviously understand that I’m in such a lucky position. A lot of people [in a similar position] have proven themselves over the years, so I’ve got to keep going and make good work,” she told Net-a-Porter. She continued, “It’s so early in my career, I don’t have much to show yet, but hopefully one day I’ll be really proud of the stuff I’ve done by myself.” Kim said her success isn’t the result of her family, however: In a viral 2022 interview, she told Variety, “I have the best advice for women in business: Get your fking ass up and work. It seems like nobody wants to work these days.” She later said her quote was taken out of context. Kendall is one of the highest-paid models in the world but insists it’s a result of hard work. “Everyone around me, whether it’s friends or family knows how hard I worked and how hard I still work. I did everything that I was supposed to do and had to do to get to the position that I’m at now as a model. I went to every single casting and ran all over, not only New York City, but all over Europe, trying to get a job and make my way,” she told Andy Cohen during a Keeping Up With the Kardashians reunion. “Of course, I had a platform, and I never took that for granted, but that almost made my job a little bit harder because people didn’t want to hire me because I was on a reality show,” she continued. “I took my last name off of my modeling cards so that I was taken completely seriously. I literally went to the middle of nowhere castings … I definitely worked my way to where I am now.” For her part, Kylie once claimed to be a “self-made” billionaire, though Forbes reported otherwise once they ran the numbers. The Barrymores’ acting legacy dates back to Maurice Barrymore and Georgina Emma Drew, who were stage actors in the 19th century. The first Barrymore to be featured onscreen is Lionel Barrymore, who won a Best Actor Oscar for the 1931 film A Free Soul. Gwyneth said in an interview with nepo baby Hailey Bieber, “As the child of someone, you get access other people don’t have, so the playing field is not level in that way. However, I really do feel that once your foot is in the door, which you unfairly got in, then you almost have to work twice as hard and be twice as good.” Still, she added, “People are ready to pull you down and say, ‘You don’t belong there’ or ‘You are only there because of your dad or your mom.’ … Nobody in the world, especially anybody that doesn’t know you, should have a negative impact on your path or the decision that you make.” She told Grazia, “I want to do everything on my own without my name being a factor. … I try to keep myself separate from it.” She added, “Kids that already have a famous background are just following in their families’ footsteps. My dad and all of his brothers have done this. This is my family business.” “I think we just need to be grateful for our blessings,” he said. “It’s always gonna be there and we got to recognize it. At the end of the day, we’re just grateful to be here.” She told Red Table Talk that being compared to her mother particularly makes her want to “peel back her fingernails,” explaining, “I don’t think I ever would’ve been scouted as a model if it weren’t for who my parents are. … You have a lot more to prove because you’re always going to have that comparison to your parents.” She told Grazia UK, “Nepotism is a thing and I’m very aware of it. … And of course, I’ve always wanted to do it alone.” Gigi has been down to Earth about her success, telling Australian Vogue in 2018, “I know I come from privilege, so when I started there was this big guilt of privilege, obviously … I’ve always had this big work ethic, because my parents came from nothing and I worked hard to honor them.” She added, “There are so many girls who come [from] all over the world and work their arses off and send money home to their families like my mother did, and I wanted to stand next to them backstage and for them to look at me and respect me and to know that it’s never about me trying to overshadow or take their place.” “I auditioned many, many, many times. And then it was between me and one other woman, whose name I know but I will never say publicly,” she told The New Yorker. “I’m sure the fact that I was Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis’s daughter, and that my mother had been in Psycho—if you’re going to choose between this one and this one, choose the one whose mother was in Psycho, because it will get some press for you. I’m never going to pretend that I just got that on my own, like I’m just a little girl from nowhere getting it. Clearly, I had a leg up.” When Black List founder Franklin Leonard pointed out that a number of celebrity spawn were working on the same project and questioned meritocracy in Hollywood, the Dodgeball star quipped, “Just speaking from experience, and I don’t know any of them, I would bet they all have faced challenges. Different than those with no access to the industry. Show biz as we all know is pretty rough, and ultimately is a meritocracy.” He added, “I’m saying that untalented people don’t really last if they get a break because of who they are or know or are related to.” Later, Stiller acknowledged that he owed a “huge debt” to his parents for his success and admitted that the landscape in Hollywood as a whole is “very tilted and uneven.” “It was out of the question that people would think that I use a free pass thanks to my name,” Collins told Vogue France. “I’m proud of my dad, but I wanted to be me, not just his daughter. For that, I was ready to wait to break through … I love to sing. But as I wanted to make my own way, far from the paternal genius, I preferred to be an actress.” When asked about her “nepo baby” title, she told ELLE, “The internet seems to care a lot about that kind of stuff. 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 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,” she added. “It’s weird to me to reduce somebody to the idea that they’re only there because it’s a generational thing. It just doesn’t make any sense. If somebody’s mom or dad is a doctor, and then the kid becomes a doctor, you’re not going to be like, ‘Well, you’re only a doctor because your parent is a doctor.’ It’s like, ‘No, I went to medical school and trained.” “A lot of people think that, and they talk about nepotism which I think is so ridiculous considering it’s obviously not true; because I’ve auditioned for so many things and never gotten the part,” she told PopEater in 2011. “Also it’s like, you know, maybe someone can get you one part, but they can’t really get you ten parts.” Kate told PEOPLE that Kurt and Hawn helped her develop a great “bullst detector,” noting, “That’s what happens when you grow up with two movie stars as parents. Your bullst detector is up here, you see it all. When you’re little, you’re like, ‘That person’s full of st, that person’s full of st.’”
