Yahoo Lifestyle Billie Eilish’s Mom, Maggie Baird, Denied Accusations That Her Kids Are “Nepo Babies” Because She Appeared In “Friends”
Billie Eilish and her older brother, Finneas O’Connell, are undeniably two of the most talented young artists in today’s music scene.
Between them, the songwriting and production duo have been awarded pretty much every accolade the music industry has to offer — a ton of Grammys, hit singles, a No. 1 album, and two Academy Awards for Best Original Song.
Aged just 22 and 27, Billie and Finneas are already halfway to EGOT status. Now, their mom, Maggie Baird, has denied accusations that they benefited from nepotism in their rise to stardom.
For some context, Maggie and her husband, Patrick O'Connell, worked as actors in LA from the 1980s to the 2010s, and earlier this year, a clip of Maggie in an episode of Friends made the rounds on social media.
The clip is from the 1999 episode “The One Where Joey Loses His Insurance,” in which Maggie plays a casting agent at Joey’s audition for a dog food commercial.
Based on her IMDb page, Maggie also acted in shows like Curb Your Enthusiasm, The X-Files, The West Wing, and Charmed. However, the majority of her credits are not lead roles.
It’s not uncommon for Hollywood celebrities to have gotten their start thanks to family connections, and the revelation that Maggie had appeared — albeit very briefly — in such a major TV show led fans to wonder if Billie and Finneas may have benefited from a similar leg-up.
However, in a new interview with Glamour, Maggie said this was not the case, clarifying that her acting career wasn’t nearly as lucrative as fans might have assumed.
“I think it’s hilarious,” Maggie said, addressing all the chatter around the Friends clip. “Because that came out, and it was like, ‘Oh, Billie is a nepo baby.’ And I’m like, ‘Did you know that I got that episode of Friends because I was about to lose my health insurance?’”
"I talked to a friend who was a casting director, and he got me an audition, and I got that part, which was a small part," she added. "But Friends became the biggest show ever. So, of all the things I've ever done in my career, that's what every one has seen."
She described herself and Patrick as “working class actors,” saying: “We eked out a meager living, and it afforded us a lot of time with our kids, which was awesome.”
“But the industry is primarily people like us or even people not even like us who couldn’t even do that,” she continued. “So when all of this happened to our kids, we’d never been on that side of it.”
Recalling her time working in Hollywood, Maggie addressed the misconception that being a full-time actor always means you’re making a ton of money from your work.
“I think that 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 told the outlet.
Comparing it to the fame and fortune her family experiences today, she added: “That’s a very different life than on this side of the door where you’re suddenly playing in this different arena.”
You can find the full Glamour interview here.
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