Jamie Lee Curtis is speaking up for the voiceless: Hollywood nepo babies.
Following a year of nepo baby discourse culminating in an exhaustive report by New York Magazine, Jamie Lee Curtis—daughter of actors Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis—shared a lengthy defense of the entertainment industry’s most privileged children.
“There’s not a day in my professional life that goes by without my being reminded that I am the daughter of movie stars,” the self-described “OG Nepo Baby” wrote on Instagram. “The current conversation about nepo babies is just designed to try to diminish and denigrate and hurt.”
Curtis continued, “For the record, I have navigated 44 years with the advantages my associated and reflected fame brought me, I don’t pretend there aren’t any, that try to tell me that I have no value on my own. It’s curious how we immediately make assumptions and snide remarks that someone related to someone else who is famous in their field for their art, would somehow have no talent whatsoever.”
Frankly, Curtis’ post reads like a rallying cry for an oppressed group of people. “I have suited up and shown up for all different kinds of work with thousands of thousands of people and every day I’ve tried to bring integrity and professionalism and love and community and art to my work,” she wrote. “I am not alone. There are many of us. Dedicated to our craft. Proud of our lineage. Strong in our belief in our right to exist.” Strong in our belief in our right to exist.
I truly do not know how to explain to these rich people that it’s not that serious. Most people are clowning on nepo babies because many of them refuse to acknowledge how their family tree opened doors others have to claw their way through, not because they’re untalented or shouldn’t exist.
