Gwyneth Paltrow calls 'nepo baby' an 'ugly moniker'

Academy Award-winning actor and wellness maven Gwyneth Paltrow, the daughter of actor Blythe Danner and the late director-producer Bruce Paltrow, says she takes exception to the term “nepo baby,” particularly when directed at her 19-year-old daughter, Apple.

“Now there’s this whole nepo-baby culture, and judgment that exists around kids of famous people,” Paltrow, in the new issue of Bustle magazine, says of the nepotism label. College student Apple, the elder of Paltrow’s two children with her rocker ex-husband Chris Martin, “just wants to be a kid and be at school and learn. But there’s nothing wrong with doing or wanting to do what your parents do. Nobody rips on a kid who’s like ‘I want to be a doctor like my dad and granddad.’ ”

Added Paltrow, 51, founder of the lifestyle brand Goop, “The truth is if you grow up in a house with a lot of artists and people making art and music, that’s what you know, the same way that if you grow up in a house with law, the discussions around the table are about the nuances of whatever particular law the parents practice. I think it’s kind of an ugly moniker. I just hope that my children always feel free to pursue exactly what they want to do, irrespective of what anybody’s going to think or say.”

Paltrow, who played Pepper Potts in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and whose films include “Sliding Doors” and “Shakespeare in Love” (both 1998), is also the mother of 17-year-old Moses Martin. She keeps a home in Amagansett, where she married writer-director-producer Brad Falchuk in 2018.