- Lily Allen compared the "nepo baby" label to being called a "Karen" on her podcast.
- She described the term as "infantilizing" and almost always used against women.
British singer Lily Allen called out the "nepo baby" label on her podcast "Miss Me?" this month, saying that it's almost always used against women.
Allen said she's called a nepo baby "all the time," as the daughter of British actor Keith Allen. Whereas, she said, her brother, Game of Thrones actor Alfie Allen rarely gets called a nepo baby.
"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," she told her cohost Miquita Oliver.
The "Karen" meme was first used to describe white women perceived as acting entitled in public. It's now used as a meme to describe any white woman who's thought to be acting inappropriately or in an entitled manner.
Allen isn't the only one with concerns about the term. Others have pointed out that there is no comparable term for a white man acting in a similar way.
Allen admitted on the podcast that having a famous father had afforded her certain privileges, but she took issue with the "infantilizing" nature of the term, nepo baby.
"It's the 'baby' that annoys me. It's like, I'm 40 years old nearly," she said.
Nepo babies — those whose careers have benefited from family connections — have been a hot topic in culture over the past couple of years. And it's not the first time Allen has chimed into the nepo baby discourse.
In 2022, she pointed out that nepotism stretches beyond just the entertainment industry.
"The nepo babies y'all should be worrying about are the ones working for legal firms, the ones working for banks, and the ones working in politics if we're talking about real-world consequences and robbing people of opportunity," Allen said in a post on X.
"There is a wider, societal conversation to be had about wealth inequality, about lack of programs and funding," she added in another thread on X.
There are plenty of big business execs whose family connections have helped them up the corporate ladder — including the five children of the current world's richest person, Bernard Arnault, who all work across his luxury conglomerate LVMH and its brands.
Nepotism even plays a part in getting jobs that aren't in the limelight. Studies have shown even though younger generations disapprove of it, they've still used nepotism to land a job.