Celebrity Celebrity Family Celebrity Parenting Gwyneth Paltrow Defends 'Nepo Baby Culture': 'Nothing Wrong with Doing What Your Parents Do' "Nobody rips on a kid who’s like 'I want to be a doctor like my dad and granddad,' " Paltrow told 'Bustle' By Hannah Sacks Hannah Sacks Hannah Sacks is a writer/reporter for the Parents team at PEOPLE. She has been working at PEOPLE since May 2023. Her work has previously appeared in The Toy Insider, The Toy Book, The Pop Insider, and Saratoga Living. People Editorial Guidelines Published on October 18, 2023 01:01PM EDT Photo: Ellen von Unwerth Gwyneth Paltrow is pushing back against the term "nepo baby." While speaking to Bustle, the Shakespeare in Love actress, 51, revealed what she really thinks about nepo baby culture, explaining why she thinks the term isn't fair. "Now there's this whole nepo baby culture, and judgment that exists around kids of famous people," Paltrow begins. "She's really just a student, and she's been very...She just wants to be a kid and be at school and learn," the mom of two says of her daughter Apple, 19. "But there's nothing wrong with doing or wanting to do what your parents do." "Nobody rips on a kid who's like, 'I want to be a doctor like my dad and granddad.' The truth is if you grow up in a house with a lot of artists and people making art and music, that's what you know, the same way that if you grow up in a house of law, the discussions around the table are about the nuances of whatever particular law the parents practice." Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. Ellen von Unwerth Gwyneth Paltrow Reveals Steps She Took Before Chris Martin Divorce to Protect Their Kids from 'Trauma' "I think it's kind of an ugly moniker. I just hope that my children always feel free to pursue exactly what they want to do, irrespective of what anybody's going to think or say," Paltrow adds. Elsewhere in the article, Paltrow opened up about her divorce from ex-husband Chris Martin, with whom she shares daughter Apple and son Moses, 17. "My kids are great. They're grounded and grateful and funny," Paltrow says. "But [Chris Martin] and I both really did not want to have them experience the divorce as a trauma." Ellen von Unwerth "We knew it would be hard, of course, but we didn't want them to ever feel in the middle, or that one of us was slagging off the other one. At that time, I did a very me thing, which was when I knew I wanted to get a divorce, I did this data collection of talking to adults who had been products of a broken home." "Every single one of them said, 'I didn't care that my parents got divorced. That wasn't it. But the fact that they wouldn't speak to each other, that they couldn't both sit at a dinner table for my birthday...' They said that was the most awful thing," Paltrow recalls. "You could see they held it with so much hurt and anger. I was like, 'That's what I'm never going to do.' And we really didn't." Close