Kaia Gerber Is Being Called Out For Suggesting That Filmmakers And TV Executives Making “Art” Would Never “Sacrifice Their Vision” By Casting A “Nepo Baby” Who Isn’t Talented

  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.

In the past year or so, the internet has been rife with discussions about the role that nepotism plays across fashion and showbiz industries.

  Pascal Le Segretain / Getty Images
Pascal Le Segretain / Getty Images

And being that Kaia Gerber followed in the footsteps of her famous mother, her name is among those now firmly intertwined in the ongoing discourse.

  Miikka Skaffari / Getty Images
Miikka Skaffari / Getty Images

In case you aren’t familiar, Kaia is the daughter of supermodel Cindy Crawford and entrepreneur Rande Gerber.

  Samir Hussein / Samir Hussein / WireImage
Samir Hussein / Samir Hussein / WireImage

She took the modeling world by storm as a teenager, bagging numerous designer campaigns and a coveted Vogue cover alongside her mom at just 14.

  Michael Kovac / Getty Images for H&M
Michael Kovac / Getty Images for H&M

By 16, Kaia graduated to her first solo Vogue cover and made her debut at New York Fashion Week, later opening the Chanel catwalk in Paris — all in her first season on the runway.

  Peter White / Getty Images
Peter White / Getty Images

Now age 21, Kaia is an established name in the fashion industry and has since turned her hand to acting, already boasting small roles in FX’s American Horror Story and Damien Chazelle’s new movie, Babylon.

  Steve Granitz / FilmMagic
Steve Granitz / FilmMagic

And while many of her famous peers have been reluctant to pay their dues, Kaia is happy to admit that nepotism gave her a leg up in more ways than one.

  David Livingston / Getty Images
David Livingston / Getty Images

“I won’t deny the privilege that I have,” she told Elle magazine this week when asked to weigh in on the “nepo baby” discourse. “Even if it’s just the fact that I have a really great source of information and someone to give me great advice, that alone I feel very fortunate for.”

  Jon Kopaloff / Getty Images for InStyle
Jon Kopaloff / Getty Images for InStyle

Talking more explicitly about her mom’s influence, Kaia was keen to clarify that things aren’t quite as straightforward as people probably want to believe, but acknowledged that her familial ties definitely propelled her to the right places.

  Samir Hussein / Samir Hussein / WireImage
Samir Hussein / Samir Hussein / WireImage

“My mom always joked, ‘If I could call and book a Chanel campaign, it would be for me and not you.’ But I also have met amazing people through my mom whom I now get to work with,” she said.

  John Sciulli / Getty Images for Spotify
John Sciulli / Getty Images for Spotify

However, when it comes to her acting gigs, Kaia is less willing to hand the credit to her parents, hinting that a famous family can only get you so far.

  Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty Images
Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty Images

“With acting, it’s so different,” she said in contrast. “No artist is going to sacrifice their vision for someone’s kid. That just isn’t how art is made, and what I’m interested in is art.”

  Gilbert Flores / Variety via Getty Images
Gilbert Flores / Variety via Getty Images

She continued: “Also, no one wants to work with someone who’s annoying, and not easy to work with, and not kind. Yes, nepotism is prevalent, but I think if it actually was what people make it out to be, we’d see even more of it.”

  Bruce Glikas / WireImage
Bruce Glikas / WireImage

Despite garnering praise for being one of the few famous kids to publicly own the “nepo baby” label, Kaia is facing some backlash online for her take on the acting industry.

  Stephane Cardinale - Corbis / Corbis via Getty Images
Stephane Cardinale - Corbis / Corbis via Getty Images

Among the responses, people have highlighted that, in some instances, Hollywood cares more about making money than it does “art,” and that a way for a project to gain more attention — and therefore money — is by casting the relative of someone who’s already famous.

  Chung Sung-jun / Getty Images
Chung Sung-jun / Getty Images

“‘Someone's kid’ is a nice way to cleanse ‘a rich and influential Hollywood power player's kid,’” one critic pointed out on Twitter.

“lmao no way she really said this... hollywood doesn't even care about ‘art’ they care about making money,” someone tweeted.

“girl be so serious,” someone else added. “as if filmmakers will not jump at casting a nepo baby knowing how much free press they're going to get.”

Another user suggested that “the recent state of TV and film” serves to show that many executives and filmmakers are more than willing to “sacrifice their vision” in favor of casting a popular person, regardless of their acting credentials, while someone else wrote that Kaia’s perspective is “naive to a fault.”

That said, the overwhelming majority of critics felt that the entire nepotism discussion is growing very tired.

“This conversation has gotten so redundant like I don’t even care anymore,” someone responded.

Might this be the last we hear on the matter? Unlikely, but we’ll have to wait and see.

  Stefanie Keenan / Getty Images for A Sense of Home
Stefanie Keenan / Getty Images for A Sense of Home

More on this