Kate Hudson's Reaction To The “Nepo Baby” Backlash Makes Perfect Sense

The nepo baby discourse rages on. After fellow nepo babies Jamie Lee Curtis, Bono’s daughter Eve Hewson, singer Lily Allen, and Emily in Paris star Lily Collins recently defended their careers from critics, Glass Onion star Kate Hudson isn’t letting the nepo baby backlash get her down. “The nepotism thing, I mean… I don’t really care,” she told The Independent, referencing the New York Magazine cover story about children of established entertainers getting a leg up in their entertainment careers from their parents’ connections. “I look at my kids and we’re a storytelling family. It’s definitely in our blood. People can call it whatever they want, but it’s not going to change it.”

Echoing comments from other nepo babies, Hudson reiterated her thoughts that hard work is the end-all-be-all for making it in the industry. “I don’t care where you come from, or what your relationship to the business is — if you work hard and you kill it, it doesn’t matter.”

Hudson is the equivalent of Hollywood royalty as the daughter of the legendary Goldie Hawn and musician Bill Hudson, and her proximity to Hollywood doesn’t stop there: After her parents’ divorce when she was 18 months, her mom began dating actor Kurt Russell (in 1983), whom she credits with raising her. Hudson got her start in the industry in 1998 when she was 20 years old and has an older brother, Oliver, who also acts.

While Hudson acknowledges that there is nepotism in Hollywood, she pointed out that it’s rampant in other industries as well. “I actually think there are other industries where it’s [more common],” said Hudson, who started the activewear company Fabletics in 2013. “Maybe modeling? I see it in business way more than I see it in Hollywood. Sometimes I’ve been in business meetings where I’m like, ‘Wait, whose child is this? Like, this person knows nothing!’”