Lily Allen Says The Term 'Nepo Baby' Is 'Almost Exclusively Used For Women'

By Emily Richardson | Celebrity | May 8, 2024 |

By Emily Richardson | Celebrity | May 8, 2024 |

Lily Allen is making a lot of headlines lately cuz she has a new BBC podcast, Miss Me? On Monday’s episode, Lily discussed the term “nepo baby”. FYI, Lily is the daughter of actor Keith Allen and film producer Alison Owen. Her brother, Alfie Allen, is also famous; he played Theon Greyjoy in Game of Thrones (he’s also the subject of Lily’s song about deadbeat little brothers, “Alfie”). Here’s what Lily had to say, via The Hollywood Reporter:

“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.”

Lily adds that Alfie doesn’t get called a nepo baby, but she does. She continues:

“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!”

Allen says that the “infantilizing nature” of the term “baby” is “something that is almost exclusively used for women,” adding, “I don’t think I can even really name any male nepo babies.” But she admits there’s “an element of truth” to her privilege, ceding that she “grew up in a certain class bracket” with people who worked in media. “And I don’t think I’ve ever really disputed that.” Still, Lily thinks “nepo baby” is sexist:

“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.”

Lily thinks that people are more hung up on women who benefit from nepotism because they require an explanation for their success, whereas, it’s easier for them to accept male fame. Hmmmm. That’s actually a pretty interesting point. But, still, my advice to Lily and all the nepotism children of the world is: STOP TALKING ABOUT THIS. Unless your take is, “Hell yeah, I benefitted from my parents’ success!” See: Sean Astin and Allison Williams.

On that same ep of her podcast, Lily reflected on her complicated relationship with Elton John, who used to be her manager. She says that Elton would call her every couple weeks to “check in and say hi and make sure I was okay.” Lily admits there were “some times in that period where I wasn’t okay.”

After she and Elton parted ways professionally, Lily wrote a “long letter” to him about how sad she was about the “big Elton-shaped hole in my life.” But he never got back to her, and this pissed her off:

“Over the next few years as my life began to sort of spiral out of control, I held much resentment for the fact that I’d made myself very vulnerable in this letter and told him all about my sobriety, and I was quite cross with him for a few years.”

Then, PLOT TWIST. Lily realized she’d never sent the damn letter to begin with:

“I thought it was mean of him, and then when I moved here to America, I was unpacking and I found the letter. I never sent it! Elton, if you’re listening — which you’re probably not — I love you and I no longer harbor that resentment towards you.”

HA! All I know about Elton and Lily’s history is that she kidnaps an Elton look-a-like in the 2009 video for “Who’d Have Known” (love that song), and, of course, the time they co-hosted the 2008 GQ Men of the Year Awards. Lily got wasted, a visibly annoyed Elton asked her if she was gonna have another drink, and Lily replied, “F*ck off, Elton. I’m 40 years younger than you. I have my whole life ahead of me.” Elton’s response? “I could still snort you under the table.” Chills.