Kids of famous people saying they are famous in their own right!

[Belledan1]

It really drives me mad. You are obviously mainly famous or successful because of connections. I know some are them are talented but surely connections of parents help. David Hasslehoff's daughter has said it. Kelly Osborne, Lilly Allen and loads more.

joyful If you’re a writer then you must know that aspiring writers serious about breaking through were advised to find an agent and that many of the major publishing houses are notorious for automatically placing any unsolicited manuscript submitted by an unrepresented writer on their slush pile. This is So You Want To Be A Writer 101 and is one of the reasons why the Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook always includes a section devoted to literary agents.

Of course nowadays with the rise of self-publishing having mostly lost the pejorative tag of “vanity publishing” there are other valid routes to publication, but to dispute the difficulty of getting a major publishing house to even look at an unsolicited manuscript - in fiction at least, I don’t profess to know as much about non-fiction as that isn’t my sphere - just means you come across as knowing less about the business than you profess to.

This thread is about children of celebrity parents getting opportunities because of their parents’ fame and a PP has already mentioned Rhianna Pratchett, so don’t go getting the hump just because some people have started talking about an area you don’t know as much about personally. I missed the post appointing you thread monitor.

This AIBU so we're all bound to agree & disagree about things.

But we all do agree that we think the untalented offspring of celebrities are being totally unreasonable to think they're wonderful, so cool & so famous.
And yes connections can get you most places, although not in sport because you need the talent & hard work to be amongst the best.

Joyful you are not stupid or lying.
I'm pleased to hear you have made a success of your career on your merits in a somewhat unlevel playing field.
So let's move on.

But, I don’t understand because obviously most actors working in the UK are not from famous families or come from within the industry. So, it must be possible for these people to get work.

Olivia Colman, Daniel Craig, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, John Boyega, Judi Dench. None of these very famous and successful actors have famous parents, so obviously the odds aren’t that stacked against the offspring of non-celebs.

Olivia Colman, Daniel Craig, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, John Boyega, Judi Dench. None of these very famous and successful actors have famous parents, so obviously the odds aren’t that stacked against the offspring of non-celebs.

Madonna never had famous parents or pushy parents.She made it on her own.

But i do think if you have no connections,you have to be super talanted or super lucky.Being in the right place at the right time sometimes is the breakthrough you need.

I'm not arguing that having a leg up doesn't help. Just some posters are making it seem that it is nearly impossible to make it as an actor unless you are connected. I just don't see how that can be true when the vast majority of actors are not from acting families. I definitely agree it's down to a mixture of talent, luck and hard work to make it big as an actor.

John Boyega grew up on a council estate in Peckham, but started acting in school plays since primary school. He won a scholarship to join a theatre at 9 and was acting after school and on weekends. He's obviously worked extremely hard to get where he is. A lot of these famous actors have been doing similar. They've been taking part in plays, working hard, building their own connections in the industry since they were young. Their success is primarily down to their own hard work and perseverance.

I'm not sure the question is, is it possible to become famous/successful without nepotism? Of course it is. All the examples above show that it is. I think sometimes its more of a case would the son/daughter/niece etc of a famous person be famous themselves without nepotism?
Many famous off spring are talented and good at what they do, (Gwyneth Paltrow, Emma Thompson, Keira Knightley) but they potentially had an easier path than those without connections. Also you never hear any 2nd or 3rd generation famous person acknowledge that they are lucky to have all these connections and opportunities, its the defensive insistence that they worked as hard, or harder and had a rags to riches tale when this is blatantly not the case in most instances.

CloudsCanLookLikeSheep
The model thing does my head in. Anais Gallagher, in what universe would she have been signed to a modelling agency if her parents were not famous.

Totally agree.
She's a pup off her dad, god bless her.

I just don't see how that can be true when the vast majority of actors are not from acting families

But seeing as the vast vast vast majority of people are not from acting families, then that's no surprise. It doesn't change the fact that a highly disproportionate number of succesful actors are indeed from well-connected familes.

A slightly different issue is that again a highly disproportionate number of actors were privately educated, when only 7% of the general population is.

I love Freya Ridings' music. I think she's a very talented singer and writes her own songs. Her father is Daddy Pig (Richard Ridings) which although may not have opened any doors to the music world (as his character is far more famous than his real name), it meant that (as a PP mentioned with Lily Allen), Freya could pursue her ambition to be a singer / songwriter with support and encouragement from her family and she would have grown up in the right sort of environment to give her the confidence and self-belief to do so. It's still her own talent that has made her successful though.