Lily Allen has shared her thoughts on “nepo babies” aka kids with famous and influential parents.
The 37-year-old singer and actress gave her take on the hot topic, expressing that she wanted to make a distention between nepo babies in the entertainment industry compared to those raised in other industries. Taking to Twitter, she wrote:
“The nepo babies y’all should be worrying about are the ones working for legal firms, the ones working for banks, and the ones working in politics, if we’re talking about real world consequences and robbing people of opportunity. BUT that’s none of my business.
And before you come at me for being a nepo baby myself, I will be the first to tell you that I literally deserve nothing.”
Twitter users pointed out that her parents are Trainspotting actor Keith Allen and movie producer Alison Owen. To this, she again acknowledged that she herself is considered a nepo baby because her parents are “super talented.” She said that she just wanted to point out that nepo babies in entertainment face different challenges compare to those in other fields:
“We don’t care about money or proximity to power yet. Many of the nepo babies are starved of these basic things in childhood as their parents are probably narcissistic.
[A]nd entertainment business is not parent friendly eg. Touring/ months away shooting. It can be hard to see one’s own privilege when you’re still processing childhood trauma, and a lot of these kids haven’t figured that out yet.”
The “Smile” entertainer drew backlash for her comments — and so she further elaborated on her take. She tweeted:
“Look, I seem to have riled people up with my comments about nepo babies. I am nearly 40 years of age and am more than happy, in fact I think it’s important to disclose what a privileged upbringing I’ve had and how that has created so many opportunities for me.
I mention my age because I haven’t always been able to have that conversation, in my twenties I felt very defensive about it, I felt like I worked extremely hard and that I deserved the success that I had, that people connected to my songs and that the songs came from me, I also had quite a fraught relationship with some of my family members so it felt difficult for me to attribute my successes to them, at the time.”
Lily went on to say that things are “more complicated” than they seem at face value:
“But we all know it’s more complicated than that. It is quite clear that there is a severe lack of representation in the industry where class and race are concerned. Everyone loses as a result. I do feel that nepo babies are being somewhat scapegoated here though, there is a wider, societal conversation to be had about wealth inequality, about lack of programs and funding, and I guess that was the point I was trying to make, maybe badly.”
She concluded by saying:
“I promise you I’m not rooting for an industry full of people that had childhoods that looked like mine.I just really think that we can’t get to a real solution without identifying the real problem, as fun as it is to laugh at the kids of famous people. Nepo babies have feelings.
Anyway, enough internets for today, I am abandoning my post as chief nepo baby defender. Have a wonderful rest of your day.”
