Kate Hudson's response to nepo baby criticism totally backfired

Glass Onion star Kate Hudson isn’t just a talented actress, she also comes from what she calls a “storytelling” family. It’s no secret that she is the daughter of iconic actress Goldie Hawn and actor/musician Bill Hudson, and was raised, in part, by Hawn’s now-partner Kurt Russell, another famous actor. However, Kate says that she doesn't really care about the current nepotism debate.

In a new interview with The Independent, the How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days star came out very firmly on the other side of the ‘nepo baby’ conversation, saying, “The nepotism thing, I mean… I don’t really care. 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.”

She went to tell the outlet, “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.”

That’s not sitting well with fans and moviegoers. Many took to Twitter to talk about how the concept of “working hard” is different when you don’t have the leg up of a famous name.

One user tweeted, “Years ago Howard Stern played a clip of an Entertainment Tonight interview with Kate Hudson in which she said being the child of celebrities only gets your foot in the door—to which Howard retorted ‘Getting your foot in the door is EVERYTHING!’ Absolutely true.”

Another said that many don’t have the same ability to “work hard” at acting because they have to worry about having a steady non-acting job to pay the bills, rather than dedicating themselves fully to pursuing roles.

“I was able to work hard b/c I wasn't drained and distracted by fending off precarity. I was able to work hard b/c the work I did had an audience and was nurtured amongst people who could reward my hard work. I was able to work hard b/c I knew doors would open if I did.”

“Once again the problem with nepo babies is that they have no concept of a life other than their own, so their version of working hard is much different than most peoples. It’s all relative baybee,” another tweeted.

Some fans were put off by Hudson's reply due to its lack of gratitude. “How hard is it for a multimillionaire to say 'It’s a huge advantage and I’m grateful for the opportunities it gave me, and I worked very hard to make sure they weren’t wasted.' I mean, I’m not even a millionaire, and I think I could say it!,” one user tweeted.

While the discourse on nepotism in Hollywood has long been a topic of conversation, it exploded last week with this New York Magazine cover story about “nepo babies” which charted how many of the people thriving in Hollywood today have familial connections to the entertainment industry. 

Some actors, like Jamie Lee Curtis (who is the daughter of Hollywood legends Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh), have called the discourse around nepo babies “designed to … hurt.”

However, others, like actress Eve Hewson, who is the daughter of U2 rocker Bono, have gracefully acknowledged their gratitude for their privilege. “I am asked about my privilege a lot. And I have always been very keen to state how much my father’s name helped me get a start in acting. I am beyond grateful for the opportunities I’ve had in my life,” she recently tweeted.

X-Men star James McAvoy has also spoken about how the culture of rich kids receiving more opportunities in the British theatre world is often due to how the system is set up to exclude working class thespians from pursuing the arts.

Speaking with the Herald of Scotland, he said, “as soon as you get one tiny pocket of society creating all the arts, our culture starts to become representative not of everybody but of one tiny part, and that’s not fair to begin with, but it’s also damaging for society.”