The conversation about nepo babies has been incessant. Willow, Kate Hudson, Liam Gallagher, Bono’s daughter — everyone’s chiming in after Lily Allen said in December of last year that nepo babies are being “scapegoated.”
Now, Teyana Taylor is joining the discourse with her own perspective. In a chat with Jeremy O. Harris for Interview Magazine she talked about the nepo baby accusations she’s received and the crucial role her hardworking mother played in her life.
Read what she shared below.
“I’ve seen all these tweets like, ‘That’s crazy. I never knew Teyana was a nepo baby,’ and I’m like, ‘Tell me who my celebrity parents are?’ Let’s be clear. My mom was literally a workaholic, she worked her ass off to make sure I had everything that I needed. So by the time we got to my sweet 16, I had just signed my first contract with Star Trak, Pharrell Williams’s label, and me, my mom and Pharrell, and the label, we came together. That was from her hard-earned money and my hard-earned money from getting my record deal. I was just this little Harlem girl and we sat down and watched Sweet 16 and I knew I wanted to set the tone. I’m from New York. I don’t want no car. I want a bike. You feel me?
So I want to commend my mom, she works very hard and she made a lot of things happen for me, and that’s why this role means so much. Even when I first got pregnant with Junie, I remember texting her, like, ‘Yo, I just appreciate you so much.’ I used to laugh when she was like, ‘Oh girl. I was in 72 hours labor,’ all those little things that they say. Then becoming a mom is like, ‘Wow.’ And then becoming Inez is triple wow. So I commend her from the bottom of my heart. And I just wanted to get that off my chest.”