NEPOTISM is a thorny concept. There’s a good chance that if you are reading this and bristling ever-so-slightly at the mere mention of the word, you’ve experienced it at some point – and not in a beneficial way.
Perhaps you were passed up for promotion in favour of the boss’s son. Maybe you missed out on a leading role in the Christmas nativity play because a teacher gave the coveted part of Mary to her beloved goddaughter (casting you as the innkeeper/donkey/wise man #3 instead).
Celebrity nepotism has been in the spotlight lately. It comes on the back of a TikTok trend that sought to “expose” so-called Hollywood “nepo babies” – the offspring of the rich and famous – whose familial connections run deep throughout the entertainment industry.
The hashtag #nepobaby has garnered more than 38 million views across the social media platform, with a flurry of videos about models such as Lila Moss and Kaia Gerber, whose respective mothers Kate Moss and Cindy Crawford were 1990s supermodels.
Other examples include second-generation acting royalty and Stranger Things star Maya Hawke, who gets her thespian genes from Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke.
There is even a list of “fav nepo babies” with Dan Levy (the son of Eugene Levy), Dakota Johnson (whose parents are Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith) and Zoe Kravitz (the daughter of Lisa Bonet and Lenny Kravitz) ranking highly in the popularity stakes.
The pop culture podcast Shameless, hosted by Melbourne journalists Zara McDonald and Michelle Andrews, recently did a segment on the “nepo baby” phenomenon.
It cited Hailey Bieber – married to popstar Justin Bieber and whose father Stephen hails from the famed Baldwin brothers acting dynasty – as a hugely likeable example of a “nepo baby” because “she is self-aware of the privilege that nepotism has afforded her”.
On the other side of the coin? Step forward Brooklyn Beckham who the Shameless podcast team savagely described as “the least self-aware person on the internet right now”.
They aren’t far wrong. If you like to dabble in the occasional bout of soul-salving schadenfreude, then chances are you will be familiar with the gripping saga of Beckham junior and his many career callings.
Not acquainted with the life and times of the oldest son of David and Victoria Beckham? Buckle up. You are in for a hell of a ride. We are talking about a young man who, at the age of 23, is fast racking up as many reinventions as Madonna, Prince and Cher combined.
To date, we have seen him dabble as a footballer, photographer and model. His latest foray: chef. Which is fair enough. Except Beckham’s regular Instagram posts showcasing his cooking prowess are often more reminiscent of a pie-eyed student making instant noodles at 3am than Le Cordon Bleu.
The perception of Beckham as utterly tone-deaf was further cemented in a video shot by Daniel Mac, a popular TikTok star who has amassed 12.9m followers by asking rich folks with fancy cars: “What do you do for a living?”
Cue Beckham idling in a £1 million red McLaren P1. When asked what he did for a living, instead of saying, “Oh, I’m the spoiled and incredibly privileged son of David and Victoria Beckham”, he replied – without a hint of irony – “I’m a chef”. Three words that will live rent-free in my head forever.
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