Rashida Jones Makes a Compelling Case for Nepotism

By Emma Chance | Celebrity | July 11, 2024 |

By Emma Chance | Celebrity | July 11, 2024 |

Rashida Jones is one of those celebrities I forget about until I see her on a credit card commercial or a talk show, and then I’m like, “Oh right, you’re cool and I like you.” Could I recall the details of her film and television oeuvre at trivia? Absolutely not. Do I often forget that she is, technically, a nepo baby? Yes indeed, and honestly, sometimes so does she.

“I had parents who were in the public eye, but they were extremely protective of us,” she told InStyle of her famous parents, music producer Quincy Jones and model Peggy Lipton. She said fame “wasn’t that much part of my reality” when she was growing up and called it “pretty poisonous for the most part,” then weighed in on the nepo baby debate:

“People like the story of a legacy family and it’s fun to write about and it’s fun to think about, you know, the ‘mini me’ and the person who looks like their mom or their dad. And then there’s the resentment there, too. But I think about it as, historically, people go into the family business more than they don’t.”

She makes a good point. Speaking as someone with no family business to fall back on, I’m envious of what seems to me like a safety net. I’ve never blamed nepo babies for taking advantage of that, as long as they’re self-aware. I’m reading self-awareness here.

Jones first tried to avoid the family business, graduating from Harvard with a degree in comparative religion in 1997. But it was her dad who encouraged her to pursue acting.

“My dad said to me, when I graduated from college: ‘You’re gonna go wait in line with 70,000 other people for a job? That doesn’t seem really that practical,” she said.

Okay, well, that part … is a little more troublesome. Everyone else gets a job with everyone else regardless of practicality because we don’t have a choice, but I at least appreciate the honesty. She didn’t land her breakout role until she was in her 30s, anyway, so it’s not like she cashed in on her parents’ fame the first chance she got. By the time she was known for acting, she was grateful for taking her time.

“I wasn’t really in a place where people recognize me until I was in my 30s, which is a good thing, but it was also like a bit of a surprise. By that point, you’re like, ‘This is how I’m living my life.’ And then, all of a sudden, you’re walking in New York and you’re used to just walking on the streets, and then somebody’s watching you.”

In summation: If I’m being honest with myself, she’s a nepo baby as much as the next one, but I just like her better, so it bothers me less. I’m self-aware, too, okay?