Lily Allen has some thoughts on the nepo baby hot topic.
During Monday’s episode of her Miss Me? podcast, the Smile singer opened up about her head start in the industry — which, yes, she got because of who her dad is. If you didn’t know, she’s the daughter of Keith Allen (above, right, inset), a prolific British actor with a decades-spanning career. From shows like Bodies and The Strip Comic, to big movies like Eddie the Eagle and Kingsman: The Golden Circle, he’s been a mainstay in the UK for decades.
Related: Willow Smith Says She’s Not A Nepo Baby For THESE Reasons!
Lily acknowledges the “nepo” part — she says it absolutely got her foot in the door. But the part she rejects is the “baby” aspect of the label. She told co-host Miquita on the Monday podcast:
“I’m called a nepo baby all the time. I actually don’t really mind the nepotism thing, it’s the ‘baby’ that annoys me, it’s like, I’m 40 years old nearly! It’s meant to be infantilizing.”
Inneresting! This is a take we’ve not heard before! She actually thinks the reductive nature is because the whole concept is sexist! Huh?? She explained:
“Also I think it’s something that is almost exclusively used for women, I don’t think I can even really name any male nepo babies.”
Well, surely she can think of one…
If you didn’t know, Lily isn’t the only famous offspring Keith raised. Her brother is Alfie Allen from Game of Thrones and John Wick!
But Lily says Alfie doesn’t get hit with the label like she does:
“My brother, for instance, doesn’t get called nepo baby, and I do. I feel like a lot of the time over the past 15, 20 years when I’ve been written about it will always say ‘Lily Allen, daughter of Keith Allen’ and I don’t see that happening with boys as often as it does with girls.”
We’d actually counter that argument by saying, yes, it’s true Alfie Allen is not often referred to as the “son of Keith Allen.” But that could be because by the time he got any fame, he had a much more famous relative. We absolutely have heard Alfie referred to as the “brother of Lily Allen” a great many times, especially early on in the GOT days.
Because of the sexism she perceives in the title, she compared it to another, far worse label: Karen:
“Nepo babies, I think it’s quite like ‘Karen’, in the sense that it’s just a word that is basically used for women who are taking up space, and we’d rather they didn’t, and they should just go away.”
We can see her point. While there are definitely some male nepo babies out there getting trolled over their parentage — Jack Quaid is brought up a lot in these conversations, for instance — she isn’t wrong that if you look up lists online, the ones people seem interested in are mostly women. Hmm.
The comparison to “Karen” is an intriguing one. On the one hand, they’re nothing alike as far as accusations go. At the end of the day, you can’t help it if you’re a nepo baby. But you CAN help it if you’re a Karen! And Karen is an overtly gendered term — meaning it gets applied pretty much exclusively to women. (Though not for “taking up space” so much as being huge jerks…) Is “nepo baby” as gendered as a woman’s name? Definitely not. But is it mostly being used as another tool of the patriarchy to subtly oppress women? Maybe worth a conversation?
This isn’t the first time Lily has spoken out about nepo babies. Back in 2022, she defended them as children “starved” of “stability and love” growing up. Read all about that HERE. Clearly she doesn’t care about not continuing the cycle! HA!
Do YOU agree with Lily?? Let us know down in the comments!
[Images via Z.Tomaszewski/WENN]