‘Nepo babies’ claim their parentage is overblown. Truth is, they’re helped all the way | Martha Gill

From Kaia Gerber to Lily-Rose Depp, celebrity offspring are making a mockery of meritocracy

Why are we so outraged by nepo babies? This is a question of particular interest to nepotism babies themselves who, since a recent New York magazine article on the children given a leg-up by their famous parents, have been attracting a level of opprobrium they are finding both unnecessary and unfair. After all, they say, they might get a foot in the door, but then they have to work twice as hard and be twice as good or at least prove themselves equal to the task. Kaia Gerber, the model daughter of Cindy Crawford, was last week the latest to make a variation on this point, which has been repeated so many times by nepo babies down the decades that it has become a sort of proverb.

Let's first take issue with this maxim. It's just not true. The sons and daughters of the famous are helped all the way along. The forces that propel them into their first job - members of the industry wanting to please their parents - are still present at the second and the third. No one sacks or under-promotes the child of someone very important if it can possibly be helped: why risk torpedoing your own career? Instead, thresholds are lowered, sometimes literally (Lily-Rose Depp, daughter of Johnny, is just 5ft 3in but a stupendously successful model). And far from having to work extra hard to prove themselves, nepo babies have the scope to fail upwards, repeatedly. Bjork's daughter, Isadora, had her big break at 17 with the film The Northman, which flopped. Yet she signed a major modelling contract just two months later. Give a nepo baby a second or third chance and earn even more gratitude from those influential parents.

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