Eighteen-year-old Romy Mars, who earned herself the designation ‘nepo grandbaby’ for her place in a pedigree of rich and famous Hollywood heavyweights, received mixed reactions for her debut song about her materially privileged life.
The track “A-listers,” directed by Sofia Coppola, her Oscar-winning mother, touches on the emotional void that comes with excessive wealth.
While she appears to lament the lifestyle as “heartless, tasteless, nameless,” some netizens believe she is actually boasting.
Most, as can be seen by the response to the official music video, favor the track and see it as “iconic.”
Romy sings about an insatiable desire for more
The music video starts by with depicting her luxury lifestyle along with its accessories and calling out an insatiable desire for more.
In the lyrics, Romy admits to mimicking pop legends like Elvis Presley and iconic scenes from the big screen like Titanic.
She goes on to describe the “Sunny West Coast” as a “plastic world” before exposing herself for not being a “rеal girl anymore,” singing, “I’ll be miserable after chasing what I don’t want.”
Romy even makes references to the substance abuse that roils Hollywood, with the verse: “You’ll draw the line there, I’ll sniff it up.”
The video mainly drew positive comments, but according to some, it is all bot activity
The track was well anticipated—if the comments on YouTube are anything to go by.
“I’VE BEEN LOOKING THIS UP FOR WEEKS,” wrote one viewer, while another chimed in with how obsessed they were with Romy.
Someone else captured a prevailing sentiment when they made the connection between the music video and the 18-year-old’s mother, Sofia.
“Of course the music video is pretty because it’s Sofia Coppola,” they wrote, hinting at her work with fashion giants, Cartier and Chanel.
‘This is talentless, insufferable, overproduced, nepo-baby garbage’
no one is doing nepotism better than romy mars pic.twitter.com/6NUTpVAq7Z
— 🦌 (@coppolasfilms) May 22, 2024
One user took issue with the overwhelming amount of positive comments, claiming that they were bot activity while describing the video as “Everything [that’s] wrong with the world.”
Agreeing with the bot farm theory, they added: “This is talentless, insufferable, overproduced, nepo-baby garbage, and no amount of astroturfing will change that.”
“She’s not even trying in this video, as if she couldn’t be bothered. I guess that’s her nepo-life now,” wrote another, summing up the negative sentiment in the comment thread.
Romy says her parents do not want her to be a “nepotism baby”
In a TikTok reel she posted in 2023 while filming herself trying to cook pasta, Romy explained that she had been grounded.
She explained that her disobedience involved trying to use her father Thomas Mars’ (the lead singer of the French indie pop band Phoenix) credit card to charter a helicopter and visit her friend in Maryland.
Romy explained that part of the grounding was being banned from social media. How or when she posted the video, and whether she defied her parents’ attempt to discipline her, are unclear, but the video went viral.
In the video reposted to X, she said, “They don’t want me to be a nepotism kid.”
Despite her parents’ aspirations for her, Romy had already started hinting at the disadvantages of her birthright.
“I don’t know the difference between garlic and an onion. I just have to Google images of onions on my phone. I’m embarrassed,” she said in the video.
Romy’s mother does not want people discussing her parenting
Romy pointed out that her parents were seldom present, so she had replacement parents—alluding to her babysitter and her boyfriend.
Her mother has since commented on the now-deleted video.
She told a Hollywood reporter that while she appreciated Romy being “funny,” she was not pleased to have her disciplinary measures aired on social media.
“People discussing my parenting publicly is not what I would’ve hoped for,” she said.
Romy shares her bloodline with the director of The Godfather and Nicolas Cage
Fame in Romy’s family flows both laterally and linearly: her grandfather, Francis Ford Coppola, is renowned for directing The Godfather (1972), The Conversation (1974), and Apocalypse Now (1979), among others—and her mother’s cousin is none other than Nicolas Cage.
A part of the internet is not impressed with Romy’s debut
