A Song Hits No. 2 and the Internet Asks Who Her Father Is: Nepo-Baby Inflation and the Family Safety Net
Once it meant a star’s kid going into the family trade. Now any head start will do, and a Review essay hears a widening wealth gap in the backlash.
By Sean Anees Saifi · Capital Wealth · Published Sunday, September 27, 2026 · Source: The Wall Street Journal, September 26–27, 2026 weekend edition, whose market figures are the Friday, September 25 close (Review)
Key Points
Country-folk singer Stella Lefty went viral on TikTok this summer with Boston, a pared-down love song now No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100. Internet sleuths then found that Lefty is short for Lefkofsky: her father is Groupon (GRPN) co-founder Eric Lefkofsky, a billionaire who isn’t a music-industry executive. She was labeled a nepo baby anyway.
Allie Jones’s Review essay calls it nepo-baby inflation: a label that once meant stars’ kids going into the family trade now covers any rising star with a head start or a whiff of money. Troye Sivan got the label over a mother who had modeled in South Africa; Lola Young got it over a great aunt, Julia Donaldson, who wrote The Gruffalo.
The essay reads the backlash as economic frustration: the wealth gap is widening, the young struggle to find work and basic needs are drifting out of reach — so a privileged background now counts against a new artist.
Fran Hoepfner, author of The Field Guide to Nepo Babies, says a nepo baby’s parents have to be successful in the same line of work; by that test Lefty is a Groupon heiress, not a nepo baby. Fans also hear echoes of Noah Kahan’s 2022 Stick Season in Boston; Lefty told Vanity Fair she wasn’t thinking about Kahan when she wrote it. A person familiar with the matter says Kahan’s representatives flagged the similarities, and she gave him a writing credit before release. Kahan didn’t comment.
Gracie Abrams, daughter of director J.J. Abrams, told the New York Times in June that having successful parents gave her a safety net to experiment and an early grasp of the industry’s vocabulary. Catherine Zeta-Jones defended her children with Michael Douglas; Hailey Bieber wore a nepo-baby crop top in 2023; Magnus Ferrell, Will’s son, concedes the critics have a point about his position.
No. 2
Stella Lefty’s Boston on the Billboard Hot 100
1 credit
the writing credit she gave Noah Kahan before release
2023
the year Hailey Bieber wore the label on a crop top
2020
Netflix film pairing Will Ferrell with his son’s label boss
By the strict definition, a nepo baby works in the parents’ industry. By the internet’s, a surname will do.
In one line: The label has inflated along with the resentment, the essay argues, and for families with money the lesson isn’t about fame: a safety net works whether or not a dollar moves, so decide on purpose how much runway your adult children get, and say so out loud.
Stella Lefty’s summer belonged to TikTok: Boston, her stripped-back love song, went viral and now sits at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100. Then the internet did what the internet does and traced the stage name back to Lefkofsky — her father is Groupon (GRPN) co-founder Eric Lefkofsky, a billionaire. He isn’t a music executive. It didn’t matter; she was labeled a nepo baby anyway, and Allie Jones’s Review essay in the weekend Journal uses her to name the phenomenon: nepo-baby inflation.
The term used to be precise — children of A-listers following their parents into the business. Now, Jones writes, it stretches to any rising star with a head start or a whiff of money or status: Troye Sivan, because his mother once modeled in South Africa; Lola Young, because her great aunt wrote The Gruffalo. Fran Hoepfner, author of The Field Guide to Nepo Babies, wants the definition kept strict — the parents have to be successful in the same line of work — and by that test Lefty doesn’t qualify. “I would call her a Groupon heiress,” Hoepfner said. Fans kept picking anyway, hearing echoes of Noah Kahan’s 2022 single Stick Season in Boston. Lefty told Vanity Fair she wasn’t thinking about Kahan when she wrote it; a person familiar with the matter says his representatives flagged the similarities, and she gave him a writing credit before release. Kahan didn’t comment.
Why now
The essay’s answer is economic. The backlash, Jones argues, is about money: a widening wealth gap, a hard job market for the young, everyday necessities slipping out of reach. With resentment of the richest Americans rising, a privileged background now counts against a new artist. Some stars push back; others lean in. Hailey Bieber wore the words on a crop top in 2023. Gracie Abrams, daughter of director J.J. Abrams, understands the backlash, Jones writes; in June she told the New York Times that having successful parents gave her a safety net to experiment and an early grasp of the industry’s vocabulary. Magnus Ferrell, Will’s son, signed with a label run by Savan Kotecha, who worked with Will on a 2020 Netflix (NFLX) film; Magnus concedes the critics have a point about his position, and Kotecha says he found him on Instagram, not through his father.
Our read
Set the celebrities aside; the useful sentence in this essay is Gracie Abrams’s. A safety net is what family money mostly is — not a check, a floor: the knowledge that a failed experiment won’t end you, and the vocabulary you absorbed at the dinner table before anyone else learned it at work. That’s an estate-planning fact as much as a cultural one. The net works whether or not a dollar ever changes hands, and it’s the part of an inheritance that transfers earliest and least deliberately.
So families with means might as well be deliberate. Decide how much runway an adult child gets, for how long, and whether it’s a gift or a loan — then say it out loud, to the child and the siblings, because everyone else can already see the advantage. The honest response isn’t to hide the net or apologize for it; it’s to run it on purpose. Kotecha’s account — he says he found Magnus on Instagram, not through his father — is the goal in miniature: the work is still what gets the kid found. If you’re holding the net, fifteen minutes with the statement and the family in one room beats a decade of everyone guessing.
What It Means For Your Portfolio
Hold — run the family safety net on purpose, out loud
No portfolio action — the position is a family one: a safety net transfers whether or not money moves, so decide the runway, the terms and the timeline deliberately, and say them out loud.
General planning principles, not advice for anyone in particular. Family support to adult children is a transfer even when it’s never written down — the floor under a risky first job, the co-signed lease, the vocabulary absorbed early. Put it in the estate conversation: how much, for how long, gift or loan, and whether every sibling gets the same terms.
The cultural backlash is a reminder that advantages are visible from outside, so the plan should survive daylight. If a child is building a career on family runway, the goal is what Kotecha described — the work is still what gets them found — and that’s easier when the net is sized on purpose rather than by default.
