Meghan McCain Says People Dismiss Her as 'Lazy' Because of Her Parents, Defends Her Work Ethic

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Meghan McCain
Meghan McCain

the view

Meghan McCain isn't going to let critics tarnish her accomplishments.

The View co-host, 36, defended her career during a discussion about nepotism on Thursday's episode of the daytime talk show, saying she has dealt with claims that she's a "lazy, spoiled brat" her entire life but her "work ethic speaks for itself."

MeCain's defense came during a conversation about the upcoming short film The Rightway, starring Hopper Penn, Sean Penn's son, and Brian d'Arcy James. The film is being directed by Destry Spielberg, Steven Spielberg's daughter, and was written by Owen King, Stephen King's son. (James' uncle was Brian Kelly, who produced Blade Runner, while his grandfather was the former governor of Michigan Harry Kelly.)

After Whoopi Goldberg shared that people have been criticizing the project as "the height of nepotism" and asked McCain what she thought of the backlash since she came from "notable stock," the conservative host replied that it's an "interesting" topic for her to discuss.

Meghan McCain
Meghan McCain

Theo Wargo/Getty Meghan McCain

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"Look, I can only speak for myself, but every single door I've ever walked in my entire life, people automatically assume that you're going to be a lazy, spoiled brat that won't contribute to anything because you have famous parents," said McCain, who is the daughter of the late Sen. John McCain and Cindy McCain.

"It's something I have dealt with my entire life. I no longer care," she continued. "I think my work ethics speaks for itself, but I think people think when you have a famous family or a famous parent, everything is just given to you and things are really easy."

Meghan then used Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden, as an example of a child with famous parent, saying that he's "shared his struggles so publicly and vulnerably" to show that "it's not everything that you think it is."

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"The majority of the people I know with famous parents have struggled with very serious demons because ... everything you do is going to be compared to what the famous person has done," she said, calling it a "tall order."

"Nobody's going to feel sorry for a person with famous parents, but it really isn't always what people think. In fact, it almost never is," she added. "I feel bad for these kids trying to just make a movie and I'm sure they got help because of who their parents are, but that doesn't mean the movie's crap."

In addition to the pressures of living up to her famous parents, Meghan previously revealed the she's struggled with "burnout" from work.

John McCain Meghan McCain
John McCain Meghan McCain

Heidi Gutman/Walt Disney Television via Getty Sen. John McCain and Meghan McCain

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Earlier in July, she made an emotional plea on her Instagram to "stop glamorizing overworking" and admitted that this "has been me my entire adult life."

"Trust me I love working and the satisfaction I get from it but I have been the queen of burnout for a long, long time," she wrote at the time. "It only took my dad dying of terminal brain cancer, suffering a horrendous miscarriage, a global pandemic where I thought I would most likely die of covid while pregnant and then experiencing first time motherhood isolated and alone in quarantine for me to receive this knowledge and really start believing it."

Meghan concluded, "Trust me, I believe it now. I also feel my mortality and the finite amount of time a human lifespan is more than ever. Also, that there's nothing in this world guaranteed — most especially tomorrow."