What is a nepo baby? Who are they? How have celebrities reacted to the term?

New York Magazine recently sparked a discussion over ‘nepo babies’ which are people who are successful largely due to their powerful family connections and the term has since become a widespread buzzword.

According to a recent article published by New York Magazine, nepo babies exist at varying levels with those like Miley Cyrus thought of as "platinum grade" nepo babies.

New York Magazine went viral after their article that exposed the world of ‘nepo babies’. While the concept of nepotism itself is understood by most, it can often be overlooked in the celebrity world as such people will attribute their success to their hard work and not family connections or favourable financial circumstances from birth since this serves as better marketing for their public image.

Sky News even wrote “Nepotism's place in Hollywood is so cemented it should probably have its own gold star on the Walk of Fame.”

Here’s a rundown of what a nepo baby is, who the nepo babies are and how these celebrities have responded to the label.

What is a nepo baby?

Nepo baby is the shortened form of “nepotism baby” and it refers to the child of a celebrity, like an actor or singer, who pursues the same career path and achieves success in it largely due to their parent’s preexisting fame.

Oxford English Dictionary defines ‘nepotism’ as “giving unfair advantages to your own family if you are in a position of power, especially by giving them jobs.”

Gwyneth Paltrow recently weighed in on the nepo baby debate in saying that such people have to 'work twice as hard'.

Where did the term ‘nepo baby’ come from?

According to Sky News the ‘explosion of interest’ in nepo babies kicked off due to a tweet from one Meriem Derradji writing about the cast of the TV show Euphoria. She wrote: "Wait I just found out that the actress that plays Lexie is a nepotism baby omg her mom is Leslie Mann and her dad is a movie director lol."

Judd Apatow is the ‘movie director’ mentioned and the filmmaker behind other hit films like ‘The 40-Year-Old Virgin’ and ‘This Is 40’. The internet was shocked with how few people knew him over his daughter and this sparked a larger discussion about nepotism in the film industry.

Following this, in the final edition of New York Magazine before Christmas, they published an article that dubbed 2022 the ‘year of the nepo baby’ which presented a deepdive into how the term developed over 2022 along with a flow-chart of how prominent familial connections were in Hollywood.

Who are the nepo babies?

Of the list published by New York Magazine there were several ‘tiers’ of nepo babies. For example, there were “platinum grade” nepo babies like Dakota Johnson as the daughter of Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson (actors), Miley Cyrus as the daughter of famous country singer Billy Ray Cyrus, and Kate Hudson as the child of actors Bill Hudson and Goldie Hawn.

Others were described as nepo babies who were the children of parents in prominent roles (but not necessarily famous) like Billie Eilish who is the daughter of a voice actor or Jake Gyllenhall who is the son of directors.

Other prominent figures in the ‘Nepo-verse’ as Vulture described it include the Chaplin family (Charlie is the grandfather of actress Oona Chaplin from Game of Thrones), the Kardashians, and the Coppola family who were behind films like ‘The Secret Garden (1993)’.

How have nepo babies responded to the term?

There have been many dissatisfied responses from the people who have been identified as nepo babies. In an interview with The Independent, actress Kate Hudson dismissed the “nepotism thing” and claimed “I don’t really care.”

"I look at my kids and we're a storytelling family. It's definitely in our blood. People can call it whatever they want, but it's not going to change it."

Others spoke of feeling their hard work was undermined by the term, for example Lily-Rose Depp (the daughter of actor Johnny Depp and singer Vanessa Paradis) said "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."

The Independent also reported that Gwyneth Paltrow echoed this sentiment in claiming that nepo babies need to “work twice as hard”.