Emma Roberts in a scene from her latest movie 'Space Cadet'. Photo: Handout
Emma Roberts is claiming that her family’s Hollywood ties have actually hurt her career more than they’ve helped, in her latest comments surrounding the “nepo baby” discourse.
The Nancy Drew actress, 33, recently sat down with Flaunt magazine, and said that she has “never gotten a job” due to her well-known actor father, Eric Roberts, or her aunt, Julia Roberts, and has instead actually lost out on several opportunities due to their reputations.
“People have opinions and sometimes maybe they’re not good opinions of people in your family. I’ve never gotten a job because of it, I know I definitely have lost a couple of jobs because of it,” she told the outlet. “I’ve lost more jobs than I’ve gained from being in the business.”
She also pointed to New York Magazine’s 2022 “Nepo Baby” feature, which she felt to be “a cheap shot to put all the celebrity kids on the cover of a magazine on babies’ bodies, ... it was kind of this viral hating-on-people thing.”
During a previous appearance on Bruce Bozzi’s Table For Two podcast, Roberts took aim at what she felt to be a double standard in how women are highlighted in the Hollywood nepotism conversation.
“I always joke, ‘Why is no one calling out George Clooney for being a nepo baby? (His aunt) Rosemary Clooney was an icon,'” she said on the podcast.
The Scream 4 star also tried to point out the flip side of being related to famous celebrities: “There’s two sides of the coin. People like to say, ‘You have a leg up because you have family in the industry,’ but then the other side to that is, you have to prove yourself more.”
Roberts, herself, got her breakout role when she was just 13 years old, after being cast in the 2004 Nickelodeon series Unfabulous. She also later starred alongside her aunt, Julia Roberts, in the romantic comedy Valentine’s Day (2010). – New York Daily News/Tribune News Service