Billie Eilish's Mom Maggie Baird Shuts Down 'Nepo Baby' Comments

[hewontgo]

Billie Eilish's Mom Maggie Baird Shuts Down 'Nepo Baby' Comments: 'People Don’t Really Understand' https://t.co/57OOPs6tGP
- People (@people) October 3, 2024
Some people think Billie Eilish is a 'nepo baby'. Her mom, Maggie Baird, disagrees

Comments

[qaladriel]

Again the 'nepo baby' discourse feels shallow. Did Billie get her talent and career from her mum being an actress? No. But living in LA, having closer understanding of the commercial music world, probably knowing someone who could talk to someone, and the industry in general is of course an advantage to having any career in entertainment. Is that 'nepo'? It's interesting to talk about.

The nepo baby discourse is really just a discussion on class and who is afforded opportunity based on their background and identity. There are many, many people out there who have outstanding talent and skill and no way of exhibiting it. It's not wrong to talk about that, nor do I think it discredits anyone other than obviously not particularly talented nepo kids who coast on their parents careers. This isn't the case here.

[hellcatshalala]

well said! I think it's important to acknowledge the privilege inside the industry but it became this shallow game of pointing out who's nepo and who's not, erasing the context that is necessary to understand how said privilege might play out. Billie is indeed privileged in some ways but it's not like her mother was texting music execs whenever she wanted.

[firstknivesclub]

it's nepo-adjacent.

[arellaj]

step-nepo

[clickyraptor]

stepo-nepo

[rihaty]

Yeah, it’s understandable to want to comment on class, privilege, and benefits people have to becoming successful. It also comes down to luck and timing. But it’s silly to use nepotism as a euphemism for all of those things.

[qaladriel]

agree

[nomoneyfun]

Thank you for this comment. People are over applying the term nepotism, but I do think it's in reaction to all the narratives about a rise to fame that deny how privilege and luck played a role. With Billie Eilish, the initial story was that Finneas asked her to sing on Ocean Eyes, it was uploaded on SoundCloud, and suddenly she got a record deal. The real story is that she had some connections that had been established by her brother and parents because almost nobody becomes a superstar by accident!

[ty]

Love this. Her mother did not get her the first streams on Ocean Eyes.

[godrevypoint]

This is a good take. Theres a difference between “my parent got me this job” and “I got this job because I had the privilege of growing up with parents in an adjacent industry and therefore had more knowledge of the game.” Bit wordy but you get my meaning. Like you can absolutely have an unfair advantage without it outright being nepotism but I feel like that’s just a blanket term people are throwing around now without seeing the nuance.

[aleksie]

I agree. This reminds me so much of various comments around first gen, being on work study, receiving financial aid, etc.

For the first gen, I hear people talk about being first gen graduate students (as in first person in their family to attend grad school) or hell, even being first generation faculty (as in being first person to be a professor). They still grew up with family who have comfy middle class lives and have bachelor's degrees. For work study and financial aid, there is a wide range of financial and other resources.

[joe_pwnz_pete]

I swear I've mentioned it before but Este Haim from HAIM and Darren Criss used to do a podcast together called That Thing I Do where they talked about the industry and to other people in the industry. They spoke a lot about how just the mere fact of growing up in the area helps you more than other people pursuing it who didn't grow up there because you have better connection, a better understanding of what it's like, and (they emphasized this a lot) that you were able to believe more in what you were doing because you knew or saw so many other people eke-ing out a living and figuring it out.