all in the family

Gwyneth Paltrow Hates “Nepo Baby”: “An Ugly Moniker”

“There’s nothing wrong with doing or wanting to do what your parents do.”
Gwyneth Paltrow
Christopher Willard/Getty Images

Although Gwyneth Paltrow has claimed to be “so out of it culturally” in a new interview with Bustle, she is acquainted with the term “nepo baby”—and isn’t a fan of its implications.

In the story, Paltrow called the kids she shares with ex-husband Chris Martin—19-year-old daughter Apple, who is currently a student at Vanderbilt, and 17-year-old son Moses, who is a senior in high school—“grounded and grateful and funny.” But while “Apple and her sorority sisters are so into Goop,” Paltrow said her eldest child is resistant to participating in the lifestyle brand. “She doesn’t want anything to do with it,” the actor said. “She’s a very private person, actually.”

Though Paltrow is familiar with being the child of two famous people—her mother is the Emmy- and Tony-winning actor Blythe Danner, and her father is the late producer and director Bruce Paltrow—there wasn’t a term to signify these familial ties during her rise in the ’90s. “Now there’s this whole nepo-baby culture, and judgment that exists around kids of famous people,” Paltrow told Bustle. “She’s really just a student, and she’s been very… She just wants to be a kid and be at school and learn. But there’s nothing wrong with doing or wanting to do what your parents do.”

It seems that Apple’s reservations about being in the spotlight stem in part from this newfound distinction—and the inevitable “falling far from the tree” headlines that would come with being a performer. “Nobody rips on a kid who’s like, ‘I want to be a doctor like my dad and granddad,’” Paltrow continued. “The truth is, if you grow up in a house with a lot of artists and people making art and music, that’s what you know, the same way that if you grow up in a house with law, the discussions around the table are about the nuances of whatever particular law the parents practice. I think it’s kind of an ugly moniker. I just hope that my children always feel free to pursue exactly what they want to do, irrespective of what anybody’s going to think or say.”

Paltrow previously acknowledged this discourse back in January, when fellow nepo baby Hailey Bieber—of Baldwin family fame—wore a T-shirt emblazoned with the label. Commenting on a photo of Bieber on InStyle’s Instagram, Paltrow wrote, “I might need a few of these.”

Paltrow and Bieber also sat down last year and discussed nepotism for an episode of the model’s YouTube series. “As the child of somebody, you get access that other people don’t have, so the playing field is not level in that way,” Paltrow began. “However, I really do feel that once your foot is in the door—which you unfairly got in—then you have to work almost twice as hard and be twice as good because people are ready to pull you down and say you don’t belong there and you’re only there because of your dad or your mom or whatever the case may be. And it shouldn’t limit you, because what I definitely believe is that nobody in the world—especially anybody that doesn’t know you—should have a negative impact on your path or the decisions that you make.”