I don’t know if anyone has seen a child do something before, but it is generally accepted that they are not very good at doing, well, anything at all. And so, when a 10-year-old North West performed as Young Simba during The Lion King’s 30th-anniversary concert in Los Angeles last weekend—and did not immediately demonstrate the same vocal prowess as the 42-year-old Jennifer Hudson, another performer that evening—I was not especially surprised. The entertainment factor of a child’s performance tends to have more to do with novelty—look at this child doing a grown-up thing!—than true professional excellence.
That one-song cameo was enough to reignite all the discourse surrounding nepo babies—and the outsized opportunities afforded to the children of famous people—with hundreds of armchair critics claiming North was cast not because of talent but because her parents are billionaire celebrities. But here’s the thing: even the most seasoned of casting directors would struggle to find someone better suited to singing the words “I Just Can’t Wait to Be King” than the crown princess of the Kardashian empire. Someone who takes real glee in dethroning her mother on TikTok live and who once described Kim’s 2023 Met Gala gown as looking as though it had been purchased from “the dollar store.” Precocious scion is a role that North West was uniquely positioned to inhabit, and I’m sorry if the truth of her Young Simba—like so many great theatrical performances—felt unsettling to some.
In all seriousness, while I am not interested in defending nepo babies (some are going to inherit their parents’ talent, while others are going to spend their whole lives in the miserable shadow of their surname), it is particularly galling to see adults take so much pleasure in surveilling young children online. Blue Ivy suffered the same fate when she performed on Beyoncé’s Renaissance tour and discovered that people on social media were disappointed in her 12-year-old dance moves—and questioning whether she’d really “earned” her place onstage. Frankly, what do we want from the children of famous people if not to sing for their suppers (and place in the spotlight)?
If we turn Apple Martin into a one-woman Page Six vertical by incessantly clicking on her face, it’s inevitable that she’ll end up on the Chanel front row. If we hover around Romy Mars-related content like a Maryland-bound chopper (“make a vodka sauce pasta with me because I’m grounded”), then we can’t exactly judge her for dropping a single titled, of all things, “Stuck Up.” You can choose to opt out of the nepo-baby discourse entirely, of course; you can decline to feed into the attention economy built around displays of beauty, privilege and success. What you cannot do is devour anything and everything related to trust fund-flashing tots and leave algorithm-tickling comments ripping into under-18s, then be annoyed that your newsfeed looks like a certain New York magazine cover. And to those still up in arms about North West a week after from her big-cat cameo? May I suggest you just… hakuna matata?
