Beckham's Nepo Baby Nightmare

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1:48Hello, and welcome to this episode of The Rest is Entertainment with me, Marina Hyde.

1:52Richard Osman:And me, Richard Osman. Hello, everyone. Hey, Marina. How are you, Richard? I'm all right. It was the BAFTAs last night. Another remorsely unsuccessful one for House of Games. Your streak is now incredible. And sadly, it's your last... That's me done, yes. ...lost eligibility. I did think maybe a sympathy BAFTA, but nothing. You know, genuinely, this is how these award ceremonies work. I was giving out an award as well to... You presented an award. ...to Martin Lewis. And so when you do that, someone comes to get you from your seat, take you round to the back in advance of doing it. but the one I was giving out was quite soon after the daytime BAFTA and so she said oh and of course if you've won then actually I'll collect you from the side of the stage not from the audience and as we were getting closer to our award we hadn't been collected I thought oh my god this is it we've finally done it this team this wonderful team I can leave them with this BAFTA for nine years of this incredible work uh and uh no we still didn't win but there it is thank you for taking me inside of the action I'd like to say I'd like to say we had a fun evening but even then.

2:53Richard Osman:But do you know what, to be fair, Scam Interceptors have won it. I was delighted with that. I was delighted that Catherine Parkinson won. Oh, that was terrific. Delighted last one, Laughing won as well. And I thought Greg Davis did a great job as well. So that was my BAFTAs. Right. What are we talking about today, Richard? We've got a fun one today. We're talking about Nepo Babies in a very specific way. There's a couple of absolutely jaw-dropping bits of Nepo Babosity that have turned up in the last week or so. And I'm going to do a sociological deep dive into what it actually means being a Nepo babe.

3:24Richard Osman:Don't people just do what their parents do anyway? And don't we pass down our genes to our kids anyway? So I'm going to try and debunk a few of those myths. I am looking forward to that. We will be taking a look at the blast radius of the final settlement in the Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni pretrial settlement. That case has supposedly gone away, but we're going to be looking at who of those three principals, how their careers have been damaged. And when I'm talking about the three principals, I'm obviously talking about Blake, Justin and Ryan Reynolds. And of course, generationally, they're kids.

3:55Yeah.

3:56Richard Osman:Because, you know, it's going to affect their nepo careers in the future. It's getting the nepos in all the way through. And we're also going to have a little chat about ITV Entertainment. There's a new show called The Neighbourhood, which has become sort of a poster boy for TV flops. And we're going to talk about whether that's fair or not. And a little bit of inside gossip about all the I'm a Celebrity hoo-ha as well. And also, I've got a little ITV announcement of my own, which we'll put in there too. Right. Let's go on to the Nepos. Yeah, shall we? In the last week or so, a bit longer, there have been a number of sort of Nepo announcements or pre-announcements, I would say.

4:29North West. Yes. The 12-year-old daughter of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West has released an EP, the six tracks, and it's called North West Forever.

4:38Richard Osman:I'm just going to look at how many plays it's had on Spotify. It's been relatively well received, I should say. Do you know what? It's actually not bad. Yeah. It's actually not bad. But of course it's not bad because, you know, yeah 24 million uh likes for childlike things piercing on my hand three million listens i mean listen that's a song about piercing on her hand that'd do you at 12 years old wouldn't it i mean come on harper beckham is the beckhams are trademarking something called haiku by harper which is apparently going to be a skincare beauty brand she's 14 she is 14 so maybe we'll start with her shall we yeah shall we it's such a tricky one because we'll say a number of things which is well i'll say a couple of just a couple of provisos which make me more comfortable talking about it kids can do whatever they want at any time that's all fine and parents want the best for their children those are the two provisos everything else is on the table yeah um i would say that her mother's brand is doing very well actually weirdly victoria beckham's skincare and beauty does miles better than the fashion and is potentially her route into becoming a huge kind of sellable company now there's very strong rumors that harper is going to launch her own brand she's 14 and it's going to be called haiku by harper it's interesting that the beckham name isn't in there i think for a brand that tends to put its name in everything yeah you think people won't make the connection i i don't know it's interesting that it's not in there but whether or not it's happening i think for sure it's happening because victoria has already started sort of laying a backstory on the various things she's done to promote her own beauty brand saying she's been sitting on my knee for meetings ever since she was tiny oh like all tweens she ruined her skin by having skincare that wasn't ready for it and she wants to create something that's particularly in that age space as we know i mean we certainly covered on the podcast before although never enough the phenomenon of sort of tween skincare and tween obsession with extremely expensive of high-end skincare.

6:39Richard Osman:Yes, which we didn't seem to used to need. Which we didn't seem to used to need. I mean, as I like to say to them all, your skin will literally need never be better than it is right now if you do nothing. And she's made a number of public appearances. She presented an award to her mother at a Harper's event maybe a year or so ago. But recently she was sort of on hand for a beauty launch that Victoria did during the school term, which I don't know, in New York. Come on, guys. Yeah, I mean, I... You can't miss Double French for that. I mean, sadly, as I've said, there is a space for this. Brands are now targeting under 10s skincare brands.

7:15You see people putting their daughters as young as five or six influencers with their own daughters doing unboxing of products. I mean, it is incredibly bleak. Is she going to be a CEO at 14? I don't know.

7:29Richard Osman:Is she going to be a billionaire at 18? so if you if you own a skincare brand if you're victoria beckham let's say you're a normal skincare brand owner two decisions firstly do i launch a skincare brand aimed at teens who don't particularly need it okay so that's a choice that's a choice that capitalism always made and they'll always say at the end actually yes i do because my competitors will do this um so i need to do it as well and all i'm doing is serving a market that's all i'm doing i'm not i'm failing if i'm not growing i'm failing exactly so you know i i get that then do you think I've really really been in the news recently because I've really fallen out with one of our children because he's been in the public eye since he was a child please might quote the statement yes from Brooklyn my family values public promotion and endorsements above all else brand Beckham comes first family love is decided by how much you post on social media or how quickly you drop everything to show up and pose for a family photo op there'll be plenty of people listening to this in the car who will have 14 year olds in the back of the car and what an insane way to bring up a child it is insane there will be people that the last years of the apprentice the woman who won charisma who's absolutely brilliant and had exactly this story she had you know trouble with her skin when she was a teen nothing worked for her and so what she did she went and got a degree in in biochemistry and then has built a brand and then went on the apprentice and one-year apprentice and you know and is brilliant she's absolutely sensationally brilliant there are victoria beckham knows this very well swathes of 14 year olds who have issues with skincare products who are not launching lines because you can't that is not open to you you have a 14 year old who has these issues and you can find a way suddenly to put that child in every newspaper in the country should you choose to do no you shouldn't choose to do but it's what I genuinely, this is where I lose sympathy.

9:24Richard Osman:I really, really, really lose sympathy. It's a child. Some people never learn. I'm so sorry. Have we not just seen what's happened? Some people never learn. I find it absolutely extraordinary. If you're an influencer somewhere and you're a 14-year-old and you do Instagram and suddenly I 100 % get that because it's the giddy thrill of suddenly you are in the public eye and that's exciting and you're building something. That is not where Victoria Beckham is. It's not where the Beckhams are. The Beckhams already have an empire. They've seen every single thing that can happen if you put your children through that kind of publicity mill.

9:55Richard Osman:They've seen all of it. The darkest bits of it. I mean, what on earth are you thinking? And lots of people want to sit there and say, oh, it's lovely. She's interested or whatever. She's got ambition. No, this is just totally bleak in some horrible industry that is now catering to younger and younger and younger girls. And as I say, it's just the absolute jackboot of the patriarchy down on your neck from what? at the age of five or six, you're doing unboxing skincare videos. It's awful. And we shouldn't think it's wonderful. And the overarching thing often in these cases, and maybe we'll talk about this, you know, maybe we might as well talk about Northwest as well.

10:30I mean, again, look at the parents. Sorry, hate to say it. But the overarching thing here seems to be that these children can't have a normal life, which isn't the case. There are an abundance of celebrity children who do have a normal life.

10:45Richard Osman:Almost all of them. Almost all of them. and that they are only suited. And the Beckhams particularly have always felt this because you've seen what each of the children, I mean, there were moments where, is Romeo going to be a tennis star? No, he's not. Okay, I'm sure, you know, in the end, they'll end up doing modeling and brand work. But the sense that they are only suited for the public eye or branches of show business. And by the way, I think these influencer-led brands are a branch of show business. And even beauty or whatever, you know, you're not a CEO. You're not, as your apprentice winner, you're not building up from the ground up.

11:17It's not the same thing. And I think it is sort of extraordinary. And particularly given what's happened to them this year, the downside, the risk reward is so extraordinarily high on the risk side of it. And just saying that, you know, my child is driven, they know what they want. Well, I mean, just the word no is in the vocabulary. And until they're 18, why don't you use it?

11:40Richard Osman:Yeah, because also who knows what Harper would have grown up to do? Something interesting, something unusual, something helpful, it's possible. you know if a 14 year old say harper had just designed and invented a brand new stent which would revolutionize heart surgery and no one had seen before by all means by all means monetize that but not this you might as well say do you know what she couldn't find um a cigarette she liked and so she's created her own and so now yeah you know and i don't and i this is absolutely no shade at all on the child who like all 14 year old girls has got a number of views about all sorts of things.

12:13I did myself and so does lots of other people.

12:15Richard Osman:Every 14-year-old child would do what Harper is doing. It's not about her. But every parent of every 14-year-old child would do. In the same way, we might as well move on to her, to North West. Yes. It's not about her. She's had a social media account since she was very young. She was posting to her mother's account before that, to Kim Kardashian's account. Age 12 is extraordinarily young. But then, you know, you saw Beyonce and Jay-Z's daughter, Blue Ivy. She was, they have some rule that you're not allowed to go to the Met Gala, which was last week. You're not allowed to go to the Met Gala if you're under 18.

12:47But of course, she was there and Nicole Kidman's daughter was there. And I genuinely don't think it's the kindest thing in the world to do this to people. But it's almost as though there can be no other business than that family business.

13:01Richard Osman:It becomes sort of like the royal family, which is, you know, if you are born into the royal family, you do understand that you have a certain life ahead of you. There are no clothes. I've heard. I mean exactly a lot of people born into it they should have had an open audition process for Prince Harry but could they have got anyone that good there's a TV show he couldn't have got anyone that good that's the interesting thing about him is he probably would have won it anyway fair play to him but I get it if you're the royal you know so royal family you understand immediately you have to put your children on a certain track and teach them certain things and this is the way the world is going to be for you and this is how we deal with it and it seems there's certain show business families for whom they've gone well it's the same with us but they always have been to some extent They've been acting dynasties.

13:40Richard Osman:Yeah, not like this, though. I know. Why am I trying to make it sound like the Rust Belt? Shouldn't they not be automatically entitled to the job their daddy did? Sometimes it's a sawmill, sometimes it's a mine, and sometimes it's selling eyeliners. So here's the sociological thing. So Nepo babies, there's a lot of talk about it, and there are an awful lot of people in show business whose parents were in show business one way or another. And the two ways you can argue against it, one but lots of people do what their parents do and there's a huge amount of truth in that and actually a growing amount of truth in that the last labor survey which is like 19 which was um 2022 i think 20 of doctors had their main breadwinner parents uh growing up was a doctor so that's one in five doctors had a parent who's a doctor you sort of see that 28 of people working in agriculture had a main breadwinner parent who worked in agriculture even even teachers it's 10 percent 10 percent of teachers had parents who were teachers so i wonder what it is in investment banking because some unbelievable morons go into that and i'm seven figures it's one of my hot takes there's no easier way to make money than being in money oh my god yeah exactly some of the biggest morons i know probably yeah made a huge amount of money and they would really struggle elsewhere um construction 17 of people in construction their parent worked in construction so we do that and we all of us understand why we do that.

15:05Richard Osman:You grow up seeing what your parent does. It either appeals to you or it doesn't appeal to you. If it does appeal to you, you immediately have a mentor who can show you the ropes. Also, you know, can get your work on the site during the holiday. And so we get it that you can end up in the same job as your parent and that you might want to as well. Does it automatically mean that you are brilliant at the job that you are doing? And that's the tricky thing because we see it in TV all the time. TV and film, there are actors who have children who are actors and you kind of go, Yeah, but they're an amazing actor.

15:34Richard Osman:So, of course, they got there on their own merits. The only sociological kind of comparison I could make was with sport, because that seems to me to have a very similar skill set, which is if you're an amazing actor, do you pass on those amazing acting genes to your children and then they become an amazing actor and therefore they achieve because they have that personality type? So, sport you look into, and actually sport, far, far, far fewer. So many fewer, yes. Nepos. lots of siblings funnily enough which tells you a lot of it is nurture you know the the Williams sisters the Brownlee brothers the Klitschkos I mean an insane amount of siblings Nevels the Nevels all three of them exactly but if we get rid of the 1860s and the 1870s with old Tom Morris and young Tom Morris no father and son or mother and daughter have ever won a golf major ever so loads and loads and loads of kids go into golf and go into you know but none of them have ever matched what their parents did.

16:33Richard Osman:Likewise, there's lots of kids who had parents who were the sort of amateur golfers and stuff and they've absolutely massively done better than their parents. But there is absolutely no correlation. Same with tennis as well. There's not a single example apart from the Suttons again, which are many, many, many years ago, of a parent and a child both winning a Grandstand tournament. Sebastian Corden might do it at some point, but no examples of it at all. So absolutely lots of examples of kids who have the skill set, but they never quite match what their parent does. And that's the best way I can look at it.

17:09Richard Osman:There's fathers and sons as well. You know, look at, you know, Maradona's son never really sort of pulled up trees. You know, Erling Haaland, his dad was a footballer, but not kind of world-class, world-class footballer, you know. Whereas in acting, there are so many parents and children who have won or been nominated for Oscars. I mean, Henry Fonda, both of his kids. Jane and Peter Fonda John Voight and Angelina Jolie Liza Minnelli when she won her Oscar both of her parents have got Oscars Vincent Minnelli and Judy Garland Jamie Lee Curtis, Janet Leigh both nominated for Oscars Jamie Lee won one Walter Houston, John Hewson, Angelica Houston all Oscar winners The Copplers of course Laura Dern and Diane Ladd both nominated for the same film their mother and daughter and Bruce Stern as well Rambling Rose exactly and Bruce Stern as well was nominated for an Oscar kirk and michael douglas michael won of course kirk didn't isabella rossellini and ingrid bergman uh goldie horn and kate hudson both nominated i mean that's the highest level you can reach in your profession and it happens time and time and time and time again and no one is saying these are not talented actors because they definitely are what we're saying is are they more talented than people who didn't get their opportunities a really really really fascinating thing I saw the other day and this to me encapsulates the whole thing and it came from a guy I like very very much is Bryan Cranston so Bryan Cranston I think is I love Bryan Cranston I'll listen you know he's interesting whatever he talks about he was talking about his daughter Taylor Dearden who's in the pit and he was great genuinely great actor by the way there's lots of genuinely great actors who never ever got on a stage because they didn't have the opportunity he's talking about how she got her break and she got her break in and again this is zero shade on her zero shade on her because she works incredibly hard and all that stuff it's always which is always the case so that proviso she got her break with a speaking role on breaking bad an episode directed by brian cranston and brian cranston is asked about this and he says well it's interesting because this is sort of the opposite of a nepo baby thing because i knew this line was there and i said to taylor you could audition for that and she said i don't really want to he said well if you don't want you don't have to but you could do and he said and then he said she got really really brave and said you know i will i actually will audition for this he said at that point i said to the breaking bad people i won't be in the room when she auditions and you must only give her this job if she is the best you have to just as only if she is the best that she gets the job to repeat this is the show in which he is the leading man and is directing that and god bless him when he's saying this you can see he genuinely means it so i get it and every parent wants to do the best for their kids they absolutely 100 % do but the one key to any sort of social mobility the single key and I see it time and time again with the people I grew up with and the people you know who I then was in education with is you have to get into the room you have to get into the room and Brian Cranston got her into that room yeah and once she's in the room that's her business you know and she takes care of it but almost no one can get in that interview was really dad you're not helping you know it's really bad please don't say anything like that but you know and that's the key you have to be in the room and most people don't know where the room is they wouldn't have a clue about how to get into the room uh and if they did if every single person had the same opportunity that taylor did and did then the oscars of the last 60 years would look very different i agree i have to still say that we talk so much and you hear so much of people talking about nepo babies and shovas and i agree you know everything we've said today but let's be honest the worst nepo babies are like you know i don't know don jr or i don't know kim jong-un i mean you know the murdochs yeah but i mean it's always the new ayatollah i mean he's useless come on he was in the job two days he's one leg down but seriously okay these you know we never see him in public these kim kim jong-un yeah like yeah absolutely that guy and what's his name alief the one in Azerbaijan i mean there's some real horrors out there yeah and those are the worst nepo babies and we just it's we are an entertainment podcast so we talk about entertainment but don't think for one second that the entire history of capital is to do with nepo babies and to do with people ring fencing every single penny they ever stole from you and giving it to their children and their children and their children that's how that's how our world runs we're allowed to talk about the entertainment bit of it if we want to talk about some the socio-economics of how the whole world is put together um then we can do at a later date but it's um let's uh let's clean our house first but i if i just would say to anyone at home who's got a kid who wants to be in that is getting in the room is the key thing and to anyone who is a gatekeeper in any way whatsoever the amount of times even at endermole when someone say oh can my kid do work experience and we absolutely put a rule and said no your kid cannot do work experience work experience has to come from somewhere outside the building it can't be from someone else in the industry we cannot do that it has to be from open applications you have to open up industries to people because and classes we always say the hardest thing for them to do that with for definite of all of the different bits of it it's the hardest bit and it's the bit we have a big problem with in this country and probably the 10 greatest actors ever to live have never acted because they never got the chance and the 10 greatest writers ever to live never wrote because they didn't get the chance and you know it's all out there You just have to open doors in a slightly different way.

22:37Richard Osman:But yeah, listen, every parent wants to do the best for their kids, and that's why it happens. So there's no shade on the kids in any way whatsoever. But there is on the parents. Sometimes, yeah. Sometimes, on certain parents. I certainly think letting your 14-year-old have a skincare line. My God. Yeah. My God, which is where we came in. Shall we go to a break? Let's go to a break. Where our children will be reading the adverts.

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24:16Richard Osman:Spring just slid into your DMs. Grab that boho look for that rooftop dinner, those sandals that can keep up with you and hang some string lights to give your patio a glow up. Spring's calling. Ross, work your magic.

24:39Richard Osman:I think this is a great question from Khalid Saeed. He says, as someone who's been extraordinarily famous for possibly the longest time of any famous person, can you describe how being famous has changed in your lifetime? What did it feel like to be famous in the 60s versus today? Yeah, I think the big difference is in yourself. When you're first famous, you love it. Because it's what you're trying to achieve. So you actually get a little hit or you, you know, something goes well and people in the street know you, you love it. There's never any of this sort of, oh, people are bothering me. You didn't have that?

25:22None of that. The modern affliction. Yeah, no, we loved it, you know. And you learn to deal with it. I remember going to a gig once and I took the train out of London to the station near this gig. And I walked in just on my own to the gig. And there's a little gang of girls found me. And they're all screaming around.

25:47Richard Osman:I'm going, girls, girls, calm down. Calm down. Now, listen, here's the deal, if you keep quiet, I'll do your autographs, we'll walk in and it would be great." So you learned how to deal with that and they got it and they were very good. Then you realized they'd get some special time, you know. As time's gone by, the times have changed. So now, phones. Phones. so if I meet someone it's like oh oh and they're reaching for their phone you know and I say I'm sorry I don't do pictures and that is like radical these days because I told that, I'm name dropping now I told that to Oprah she goes you don't do pictures?

26:38I said no she said why? I said I don't want to you know and it's like it's as simple as that. Welcome back everybody that was a small part of our interview with the legend Paul McCartney. Sir Paul McCartney. Sir Paul McCartney. We absolutely loved doing it. He was a complete joy. That is available for everybody on Thursday, but if you can't wait, it's available for members now.

27:03Richard Osman:It's so nice doing those interviews with listener questions rather than our own. It's a really nice vibe to doing an interview, I think. Yes. And so have others and see if your questions got through. You get to ask some quite cheeky ones, which I might have not actually. ask myself let us talk about blake lively um and justin baldoni settled their long-running feud which was in two weeks was going to come to trial yeah uh they settled it last uh monday and um she appeared at the met gala completely unexpectedly just a couple of hours later i don't think it was settled for any money there was a statement which i have to say i find completely hilarious i mean this is the defining without any question the defining hollywood feud of the era you love a statement as well okay well i love a statement this this is a statement the end product the movie it ends with us is a source of pride to all of us who work to bring it to life raising awareness and making a meaningful impact in the lives of domestic violence survivors and all survivors is a goal that we stand about it's like wait that's what this was about i'm so sorry because it didn't feel like that for a while but just as a reminder very very brief reminder started off with um behind the scenes conflict of it ends with us which was the 2024 movie adapted from the colleen hoover bestseller was a smash hit baldoni's a sort of male feminist who wrote and who wrote and directed it and starred in it blake lively who's a bigger star also starred in it very quickly escalated into suits of sexual harassment and countersuit smear campaigns and all this sort of stuff it will have taken eight figures in legal fees to get even before we started the trial being a lawyer is a grift, isn't it?