Billie Eilish’s mom claps back at her ‘nepo baby’ label

Originally appeared on E! Online

Billie Eilish‘s mom knows the singer was made to achieve great things.

But Maggie Baird — who also shares son Finneas with husband Patrick O’Connell — doesn’t buy that her children became famous because of nepotism. In fact, the actress denies Billie and Finneas are “nepo babies” simply because she and O’Connell are both in the entertainment industry, which the internet brought up when a clip of Baird on a season six episode of “Friends” recently made the rounds.

“That came out, and it was like, ‘Oh, Billie is a nepo baby,'” Baird told Glamour in an interview published Oct. 3. “And I’m like, ‘Did you know that I got that episode of Friends because I was about to lose my health insurance?'”

According to Baird, she and her husband — who has appeared in “Iron Man” and “The West Wing” — were both “working class actors.”

“We eked out a meager living,” she continued, “and it afforded us a lot of time with our kids, which was awesome.”

As Baird explained, she and O’ Connell had never experienced the level of fame that Billie, 22, and Finneas, 27, found as teenagers, adding that there are plenty of people working in Hollywood and the entertainment industry who don’t experience it either.

“People don’t really understand there’s a whole industry of people who are creative and they’re working and they’re struggling, and they make perfectly happy lives, and they feel creative, and they feel fulfilled,” she added. “But that’s a very different life than on this side of the door where you’re suddenly playing in this different arena.”

And as she’s watched her children achieve more and more success — like when they broke the record for youngest two-time Oscar winners — she’s thankful that they have managed to maintain a close-knit family unit.

“You step onstage in front of 100,000 people, and that’s an hour and a half,” she said to Glamour, “and then the rest of the time you’re at the dinner table and your brother is giving you s–t. The family part is the part that keeps it sane.”

And the main thing Baird hopes people remember about Billie and Finneas is “they’re all human.”

“You get a bad review in a local paper — you know what I mean? — that’s a bummer,” she said. “But you don’t have millions of people commenting on you. And it is kind of an experimental generation that we are parenting.”