Willow Smith is not afraid to admit that “a little bit of insecurity” — stemming from her lineage — has driven her to work really hard.

The 23-year-old singer-rapper opens up about what it’s like being considered a so-called “nepo baby” and why she doesn’t consider herself one in a new interview with Allure. The topic came up after Willow detailed how she deals with negativity, which she says echoes in her head from “the things that people have said to me” and are not necessarily her own thoughts.

Willow admits she’s “wrongly internalizing the negativity from the outside,” and that the outside noise is rooted in people labeling her as a “nepo baby” because her parents are Oscar winner Will Smith and actress/Red Table Talk host Jada Pinkett Smith.

But people have it wrong, she says.

“I truly believe that my spirit is a strong spirit and that, even if my parents weren’t who they were, I would still be a weirdo and a crazy thinker,” Willow tells the venerable women’s magazine. “I definitely think that a little bit of insecurity has driven me harder because people do think that the only reason I’m successful is because of my parents. That has driven me to work really hard to try to prove them wrong. But nowadays, I don’t need to prove s**t to anybody.”

Willow — who like her famous mom and grandmother was a fixture on Red Table Talk — is also adamant she doesn’t fit the label as a Black woman in America.

“Being Black in America, even with privilege, which I’m never going to deny that I have, you’re still Black,” said Willow, who made her Coachella debut last year at 22. “And I love being Black. People would look at me and [say], ‘Okay, well, her parents are this and that, but she still is like me. She still has brown skin.’ And we all know that that doesn’t exempt you from anything, and that’s a place of connection.”

The “nepo baby” conversation came to the social conscious forefront in 2022 after New York Magazine‘s nepotism cover sparked a fiery discourse in Hollywood and beyond. The magazine’s deep dive into the invisible network of family ties that makes up the media industry and Hollywood’s tried-and-true practice of giving the children of famous celebrities a boost up the ladder caused waves of discussion that rubbed some famous faces the wrong way.

But while some took exception to the label (like Kate Moss‘ half-sister, Lottie Moss) others like Ice Cube‘s son, O’Shea Jackson Jr., embraced it.

“My dad told me in a perfect world, I would play him in [Straight Outta Compton],” the 33-year-old wrote in a series of tweets. “I was already in college for screenwriting at USC. I accepted the challenge. And auditioned for two years before getting the role. After that it was up to me, he couldn’t hold my hand through my career. I had to get my a** up and make it work. … Once the door was opened it was up to me to walk through it and thrive.”

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