Michael Douglas has joined his wife, Catherine Zeta-Jones, in criticising the term “nepo baby”, saying the phrase has a “snotty” tone that he resents. The actor, 82, made the comments to the Sunday Times while discussing his autobiography, One Helluva Ride.
Douglas, the son of the late Kirk Douglas, said he could think of very few children of famous parents who had gone on to the kind of careers he and his father enjoyed. He also argued that in almost every other industry parents help their children and family firms trade under names that include a son or daughter, whereas in Hollywood the next generation is criticised for doing the same.
His remarks follow an interview Zeta-Jones gave to the same newspaper last week, in which she called the phrase horrific and said the children of famous people had not asked to be born into that position. She later joked on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour that she was married to “the ultimate nepo baby”, and argued that children who follow their parents should not face such intense scrutiny.
Both of the couple’s children have gone into acting. Dylan, 26, a Brown University graduate, has a role in the forthcoming thriller I Will Come to You, while Carys, 23, made her stage debut in July in an off-Broadway production of Chekhov’s The Seagull. Carys told Town & Country in 2018 that she felt she constantly had to prove she was more than her parents’ daughter, and credited them with keeping her grounded.
Douglas and Zeta-Jones met in 1998 and married two years later, the same year Dylan was born, and Carys followed in 2003. The family spent the children’s early years in Bermuda, away from Hollywood, and Carys has said she grew up believing her father made pancakes for a living. Zeta-Jones told Drew Barrymore that both children chose acting despite their parents’ warnings, and that the couple insisted they study the craft formally.
