This week, Brooklyn Beckham shocked his followers when he shared a video of himself rustling up a tomato pasta dish using seawater.
In the clip posted to his Instagram, the would-be chef leans off the back of a luxury yacht and dips a silver saucepan into the sea, before bringing the briny to boil and plopping in some spaghetti.
“That’s disgusting,” one person commented. Others said: “Nothing like cooking in sewage water…” and – possibly most devastating of all – “Go get a real job PLEASE!!!!!!”
Beckham, 26, has long faced criticism from nepo baby haters for using his privileged position as the eldest child of David and Victoria Beckham to his advantage in his various “careers”.
His amateurish seawater pasta is but his latest clueless foray into the world of work. He irritated established fashion photographers when, aged 16, he was hired by Burberry to shoot its latest fragrance campaign. In a juvenile collection of his photographs, published by Penguin Random House, his shot of a dimly lit elephant was accompanied by a caption: “Elephants in Kenya. so hard to photograph but incredible to see.”
In 2022, his career relaunch as an chef-influencer, with his straight-to-Instagram show Cookin’ with Brooklyn, reputedly required a team of 62 professionals, including culinary producers, cameramen and several producers – and cost a staggering £74,000 an episode to make. Nothing like starting at the bottom and working your way up, is there?
Oasis’s return to Wembley Stadium this weekend, for the first time since 2009, as part of the brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher’s reunion tour, sees them supported by Richard Ashcroft of The Verve. But eyes have no doubt rolled at Liam’s daughter, Molly, and Ashcroft’s son, Sonny, gracing the front of the new issue of Tatler, as cover stars for their latest Cool Britannia issue for the same reason: they are only famous because of their parents.
In the cover photo, Molly, 27, a model, is standing on an elaborate gilded French stool in a blue leather mini-coat, with 25-year-old musician Sonny – who is hoping to release music soon – wearing a tie against the backdrop of a huge union flag.
The trouble with nepo babies – a phrase coined in 2022 that shortens “nepotism”, and which Gwyneth Paltrow dismissed as an “ugly moniker” with which to beat the children of famous people – is that they are successful only because their famous parent(s) helped them get their foot in the door. Those who are talented struggle to escape the pervasive feeling that their connections and wealth have given them a head start that other equally talented people won’t get.
The resentment is that it’s grossly unfair, as the rest of us have to claw our way to the top. We can’t just walk into a movie role, or capitalise on being the next generation leading the Britpop revival.
To win favour, nepo babies shouldn’t deny or hide their privilege like Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis’s daughter Lily-Rose Depp, 26, did when she once claimed in Elle magazine that “nothing is going to get you the part except for being right for the part”.
This week, Isadora Bjarkardottir Barney, 22-year-old daughter of Icelandic singer Björk, claimed that being a nepo baby “doesn’t help you much” after landing her first leading role in a feature film, The Mountain.
Hailey Bieber tried to embrace the term by wearing a “Nepo Baby” crop top in 2023, to acknowledge her Baldwin family dynasty links, but was then criticised online for “not being enough” of a nepo baby. Stranger Things actor Maya Hawke – daughter of Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman – tried a different tack, admitting what a privileged position she is in, compared with the rest of us.
Since the whole debate erupted with New York Magazine’s 2022 cover “The Year of the Nepo Baby”, things have changed. I say it’s about time we stopped hating on nepo babies.
Today’s nepos – Nepo 2.0, the next generation – are fully aware of their ridiculousness, and they’re now actually playing up to it. Because they can’t help who their famous parents are – and what else are they supposed to do?
That’s why Beckham now courts criticism and finger-pointing laughs by cooking seawater pasta, and why the Oasis nepo babies are happy to push their status as cultural icons for a new generation.
The difference is that the new breed of nepo babies aren’t struggling with the nepo label. They are just happy to weaponise it and get up in our faces.
Blue Ivy Carter, 13, the daughter of Beyoncé and Jay-Z, has been dubbed a positive example of nepotism in the music industry for her stage presence and talent after she brazenly adopted the role of chief backing dancer for her mum’s Cowboy Carter tour – often stealing the limelight.
Kai Gerber, 23, looks the spitting image of her supermodel mum Cindy Crawford – for a reason. She’s continuing Crawford’s legacy in the fashion industry.
Nepo babies offer the rest of us light relief in dark times. Getting ahead because of mum and/or dad isn’t going away – so we might as well enjoy it.
