Welcome to ‘Showtime with Emily Maddick’, in which GLAMOUR’S Assistant Editor and Entertainment Director brings a unique perspective to the month’s most hyped film or TV show. For January’s instalment, Emily reviews the Channel 4 documentary Born in the Limelight: Nepo Babies UNTOLD. The show sees DJ and presenter, Phoenix Brown, daughter of Spice Girl, Melanie Brown, explore the rampant and rabid rise of the term ‘nepo baby’ to describe the equally rampant rise of the children of celebrities in the entertainment industry, seemingly purely down to their privilege and parents’ connections. Emily, who has worked with Phoenix in the past, shares her view that while this is clerly nepotism at play, it seems nepo babies are being blamed for society’s inequalities and hating on them is not the answer.
I recently read Lisa Marie Presley’s beautiful memoir, From Here to The Great Unknown, which her daughter, actor and writer, Riley Keough, completed as co-author following her mother’s death aged 54 in 2023. The book offers a fascinating insight into the life of Elvis’ only child, both the highs and the lows, but my overwhelming takeaway after finishing it was one of sadness for Lisa Marie, who is arguably the OG of nepo babies. Of course she was born into unimaginable privilege and universally feted as American royalty, but the burden she carried as the daughter of the ‘King of Rock and Roll’ was one that she battled with her entire life, along with addiction, failed relationships and the devastating impact of the loss of her son, Benjamin, to suicide in 2020. Indeed, she herself said: “Being Elvis Presley’s daughter is a whole lot of pressure. It’s been a constant burden in my life. I don’t deal well with admiration if it’s for something I haven’t done.”
It would be easy to dismiss this as, “oh boo hoo, cry me a river poor little rich girl” But rarely is it helpful to make a prejudiced opinion on someone before learning more about them, especially if the judgement is based on something they have no control over, such as the circumstances of their birth. It’s not progressive. And for that reason, there’s a large part of me that feels sorry for nepo babies enduring the current spate of nepo baby hate that has consumed our cultural discourse in recent years.
Look, I do not want to be accused of being a “privilege apologist” here and I wholeheartedly understand the frustrations and inequality at play when these genetic lottery winners seem to be using their platform of privilege to leapfrog up the career ladder, achieving the same status as their megastar parents – often without the talent or hard graft required of lesser mortals. And by that, I mean lesser socio-economicly fortunate individuals. It’s shit. It’s hard, fast proof of society’s gross inequality, glaring for all to see in the glossy world of showbiz – and in most of your favourite TV shows. But it’s the toxic levels of nepo-baby bating that has blown up online and in the media in recent years, that I take issue with.
Which is why I applaud DJ and presenter, Phoenix Brown, 25-year-old daughter of Mel ‘Scary Spice’ Brown for her new documentary: Born in the Limelight: Nepo Babies UNTOLD, which airs Thursday 16 January on Channel 4.