Gracie Abrams, the daughter of “Star Trek” director J.J. Abrams and Bad Robot co-CEO Kaite McGrath, recently told The New York Times’ “Popcast” that she understands the online discourse about her nepotism.
“The nepo stuff is obviously in the discourse, appropriately,” Abrams said. “I think about the privilege there, and it’s like, I had a safety net, and that allowed me the ability to experiment, and concentrate, and I had the gift of time to dedicate to doing this thing I loved. I wasn’t growing up afraid financially, and that’s the biggest deal.”
She explained that beyond the financial stability, she also grew up surrounded by the entertainment business, which gave her an advantage when building her music career as an adult.
“The specific household that I was born into, with my parents both having worked in the entertainment industry for as long as I’ve been alive,” Abrams said. “Like the way that you overhear your family talking about anything, like at the dinner table or in the car on the way to school, there is just this vocabulary that I was so lucky to grow up with.”
Abrams added, “When I see people pointing that out, it’s like: I get it, hardcore. The jokes and things, I also understand. I’m like, ‘Go crazy.’”
She later admitted that sometimes “the tone of the internet” can be a bit overwhelming, and she sometimes needs to tune out the negativity in her social media feed.
“It is funny when it overwhelms the things you actually want to see [online],” Abrams said. “Because my name is my name, your algorithm is just naturally being like — you’re being like force fed. And there are some days where I’m laughing just as hard as the person posting it. And there’s other times where like — we’re all people. That can’t feel good.”
