It was the final straw: a 17-year-old Sunday Rose Kidman, stomping her way down the runway looking stern in a beige trench coat with big leather lapels for Calvin Klein at New York Fashion Week last month. Oh God, not another nepo baby!

Since the daughter of Nicole Kidman made her appearance, she has faced accusations and criticism online for getting a leg up on the career ladder: “Nepotism is revolting,” said one person. “Clomp clomp clomp,” declared another about the fact she couldn’t even walk properly. “Without her parents’ connections, she would be helping the REAL models in and out of their runway outfits!” said another.

Then came Harper Beckham and the announcement of her imminent skincare line, to be aimed squarely at tween and teenage girls. The ensuing publicity made much of the fact that “this was all Harper’s idea” and how “she’d always wanted to start her own business”. She was, we were told, a real challenger to Kylie Jenner’s makeup empire – now valued in the billions. However, this excited coverage was quickly replaced by accusations that she was helping to breed “success anxiety” for Gen Z and her privileged path to entrepreneurship simply left people feeling sad and dispirited.

You only have to think of the millions of hopeful actors, models and budding entrepreneurs with bags of talent to understand the resentment – and why we have become nepo baby haters.

So, it was refreshing to hear that Ronnie Wood’s eldest daughter Leah, 47, has “hustled” her way through life as an artist, and has had to “work her arse off” despite her dad having a fortune estimated at £150m.

In an interview with The Times last weekend, Wood even went as far as to say: “I think my dad did me a favour there in not putting tens of millions of pounds into my bank account.” Wow! If I was in her position, I don’t know if I could bring myself to say that, even if it is true.

The only help her Rolling Stones rocker dad has given her, she says, is “money to, like, buy food some days and maybe do the occasional school bill”.

“I have got a very normal life,” she continued. “My husband and I have had to work our arses off. Having kids and stuff, our mortgage to pay and, you know, trying to find X amount of money to fix the old stone wall,” said Wood. “I look at other kids who have got famous families and they just get handouts, and it doesn’t motivate them to be hungry for work, to be passionate for work.”

Wood is determined to hand this work ethic on to her own children, as her dad did for their family. Her brother Jesse Wood, 49, recently appeared in court on a speeding charge and claimed that he was “scraping by” on £1,000 a month, after separating from TV presenter Fearne Cotton.

Nepo babies get a bad name – but it’s always an advantage. At theVanity Fair Oscars party on Sunday night, nepo babies dominated the red carpet, including the models Kaia Gerber, 24, the lookalike daughter of former supermodel Cindy Crawford, and Iris Law, the 25-year-old daughter of actors Jude Law and Sadie Frost. Despite his howls of pain, David and Victoria Beckham’s estranged son Brooklyn still managed to get a whole book out of his much-mocked wildlife photography and a product line from his questionable skills as a chef. Others, like Lily-Rose Depp, the actor daughter of Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis, just float into Hollywood films like it’s their birthright – and it seemingly is.

That’s why we need to hear more about those hardworking children of A-listers like Wood, who are on normal salaries – and dubbed “anti-nepo babies”. It’s refreshing – and throws a new light on the issue of privilege: that you can tear yourself away from your A-list parents and succeed in your own right, saving both your sanity and self-esteem.

Madonna and director Guy Ritchie’s son Rocco Ritchie, 25, has the right idea. It was reported in 2016 that he got a job as a Deliveroo cyclist in London aged 16. He was even toying with the idea of a garden centre. He has proved to be a top mark anti-nepo baby ever since. He has intentionally carved out his own career path as an expressionist painter, aiming to build a reputation away from his parents’ fame. He sold his paintings under the pseudonym Rhed, to hide his famous heritage, until he was unmasked as Madonna’s son in early 2022.

In December, he finally shared a photograph of himself with his parents on Instagram, when they both came to support him at his new art exhibition at London’s The Painting Rooms.

“It’s obvious why some people might hold judgement against me; I don’t blame them,” he wrote in the post. “However, I am proud to be who I am, but I’m even prouder to have both of my parents together in one room supporting me. The work should speak for itself, that’s why the show was called ‘Talk Is Cheap’.”

I also love the fact that Gordon Ramsay’s daughter Megan, 27, is a police officer and his son Jack, 26, is a Royal Marine. Ramsay – who is estimated to be worth £162m – has previously said he and his wife Tana have reportedly only agreed to provide 25 per cent for their six children’s first homes. It sounds so refreshingly normal.

There are tons of hard-working A-list offspring out there who are forging their own careers – and not in the entertainment and fashion industry. Anna Wintour’s son Charles is a doctor; Jeff Bridges’ daughter Hayley is an interior designer; Bruce Springteen’s son Sam is a firefighter; Bill Murray’s son Luke is a basketball coach; Robert de Niro’s son Raphael is a real estate broker, and Willem Defoe’s son Jack is an environmentalist.

Jamie Oliver’s 22-year-old daughter, Daisy Boo Pamela Oliver, is a trainee nurse; Ben Atkinson – the mirror image of his dad Rowan Atkinson – joined the British Army’s Royal Gurkha Regiment in 2019; Ulrika Jonsson’s daughter, Bo, 24, is a Norland nanny.

It’s true that nepo babies can’t win – they are damned with a famous name and damned without it. But they seem to forget there is another way – one that usually involves a P60 form, not an A-list parent.

The world of celebrity is so weird that it would be more normal not to jump into the pit – and see it for what it is and get a normal job. But the problem is many of these A-list offspring grow up as a brand – and, as Brooklyn discovered, are part of a PR machine from birth.

Even those who stay in their own lane and actively seek regular jobs live in the shadow of their parents’ famous name. But if Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall’s daughter Leslie, now 73, can break free, any nepo baby can. Leslie lives a relatively normal life out of the spotlight, having worked as a yoga instructor and a nurse in Boston.

We need more anti-nepo babies, like her, who are on normal salaries, so that celebrity culture isn’t normalised. It’s a welcome antidote to a world where Hollywood celebrities are all even starting to look alike with the rise of the “copy-paste face”, which leaves us wondering if they are all just related.

The article below is an excerpt from my newsletter: Well Enough with Harry Bullmore. To get my latest thoughts on fitness and wellbeing pop your email address into the box above to get the newsletter direct to your inbox.

Physical ability peaks at 35. Or at least, that’s the headline takeaway from a 47-year study by the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden.

For anyone younger, this feels like a lot of pressure. For anyone older, it’s rather disheartening news.

Yet I recently spoke to coach Ed Haynes, who trains hundreds of people of all ages – including his 76-year-old mother. Despite lacking the strength to hold a plank at 59, she now cranks out pull-ups, plays golf three times per week, swims most mornings and does plenty of other exercise besides.

So is she the exception that proves the rule? No. Rather, she reinforces the study’s results.

“It is never too late to start moving,” lead author Maria Westerståhl says. “Our study shows that physical activity can slow the decline in performance, even if it cannot completely stop it.

“…individuals who started being physically active in adulthood improved their physical capacity by 5–10 per cent.”

Haynes’ story is further proof that nuance tells us a more reliable story than an eye-catching headline. That is the theme of this week’s newsletter.

“Something that comes up a lot with my clients is biological age,” says Haynes. “Strength peaks around 35 and your body’s ability to recover is in decline [from this point], so people think they’ve missed the bandwagon and there’s no point in training. But many of these studies are based on people who have been training consistently from a young age.”

Exercise has immense value at any age – a recent interview on strength training’s many longevity merits made that clear. And if you are able to adopt a healthier routine than you had in your 20s, 30s or 40s, alongside some smart training methods, it is entirely plausible that you could become fitter now than you were then.

“You can still have your highest level of muscle mass in your 60s, and be hitting strength PRs in your 70s, because you’re so new in your training journey,” Haynes says. “The best time to start is now. You’re just going to have to manage your training and fatigue in a smarter way as you get older.”

Haynes is responsible for two of this week’s featured articles. In the first, he shares how he trained his mum to become her fittest self in her 70s. In the second, he reveals the six small lifestyle changes anyone can make to enjoy an immediate uptick in their health.

In another recent interview, I discussed all things posture with experienced physiotherapist Alex Morrell. His viewpoints might surprise a few people.

“There is no link between posture and pain,” he tells me. “Most people assume that back problems and back pain are linked to poor posture, and slouching in particular. But there is zero scientific research to support that.”

Again, value can be found in the nuance of his statement. He argues that “the best posture is the next posture” – in other words, humans are built to move, so staying in any position for hours at a time is likely to be unkind to your body.

Your body adapts to what you consistently ask it to do. If you sit down for most of the day with your hip flexor muscles in a shortened position, your body might tighten them to become more efficient at sitting, sometimes leading to dysfunction in the hips and surrounding areas.

Morrell’s remedy is delightfully simple: “If I’m slouching, I might sit more upright for a bit; if I’m sitting upright, I might slouch a bit more. If I’ve got the luxury of a standing desk and I feel stiff and sore while sitting down, I’m going to stand up. Or I might go and stretch my legs – go to the loo or make a coffee.

“It’s just about doing really simple things in a simple way, rather than catastrophising and exaggerating the impact of being at a desk.”

So what is our takeaway today? Well, you’re somewhat spoilt this week, for I’ve settled on two.

Firstly, exercise and movement are beneficial at all ages, and if you don’t do all that much currently, the best time to start is now.

Secondly, you will see a lot of health headlines nowadays designed to provoke strong reactions – pride, fear, guilt, comparison. Scratching beneath the surface and giving a nod to the nuance at play usually delivers a more measured, helpful message.

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