Michael Douglas Says 'Nepo Baby' Really Pisses Him Off

According to Variety, Michael Douglas went on the SmartLess podcast and said the "nepo baby" label "really pisses" him off, calling himself "Hollywood royalty" and saying he "doesn't know a career where a father or mother don't try to help their son or daughter get into their business."

There are two kinds of people who get to be angry about the phrase "nepo baby." People whose parents did not help, and people so famous the word cannot reach them. Michael Douglas is in the second group. His father was Kirk Douglas, a name built on three continents, dead in 2020 at 103. Michael is 82. He has been an actor longer than most of the people using the phrase have been alive.

And yet, on a podcast with three comedians and a studio audience, he said the word "really pisses me off." Not "bothers me." Not "is unfair." Pisses me off. An 82 year old two time Oscar winner, rattled by a four letter word.

His argument: "I don't know a career where a father or mother don't try to help their son or daughter get into their business." And everyone in that room knows exactly why that is not the argument. "Nepo baby" was never about whether parents help. It is about whether the parent is Kirk Douglas. A plumber's dad helps his kid get a job at the plumbing company. That is called a career. An actor's dad with an honorary Oscar helps his kid get a scene in a movie. That is called a head start. Douglas does not deny the head start. He is the head start. He is the product of it.

His other piece of advice, also from the same podcast, is for aspiring actors: find "good material," because we "don't play an instrument, or we don't paint, or we don't write." A good script "helps things along." That is a remarkable thing to say, coming from the man it is aimed at. The entire case against nepo babies is that they do not need a good script. They need a good last name, and the script shows up.

The timing is the funny part. The rant aired the same week his memoir, One Helluva Ride, hit shelves Tuesday, and Page Six is leading with the sex and the drugs. He also admitted a secret relationship with Kathleen Turner and dumped a "staggering" number of partners before Catherine Zeta-Jones (Page Six). You cannot do that in one week and then complain that people are fixated on your family. That is like robbing a bank and then being mad about the mugshot.

The nepo baby debate is an argument about luck. Douglas is not having a discussion. He is defending. And he is doing it by pointing at the luck he had and calling it universal. Everyone's parents help. Sure. No one else's parent has an honorary Oscar, though.

YOUR TURN: Is "nepo baby" a fair label for a career that started with a famous last name, or is it just jealousy with a hashtag?