Billie Eilish’s mother claps back for claiming the singer is a ‘Nepo baby’

Billie Eilish was made for Grammy and Oscar winners.

But don’t get it twisted – it’s not because she was a Nepo baby.

That was the claim the internet made after a recent clip went viral of Eilish’s mother, Maggie Baird, appearing in a 1999 episode of Friends. But Mama Maggie rejects this idea.

“I think it’s hilarious,” Baird, 65, told Glamor in a cover story for its new Women of the Year: The Moms issue, which also features the mothers of Beyoncé (Tina Knowles), Selena Gomez (Mandy Teefey) and Travis You can see Jason Kelce (Donna Kelce).

“Because that came out and it was like, ‘Oh, Billie’s 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?”

Baird had previously appeared on the soap operas “Another World” and “As the World Turns” as well as other TV series such as “LA Law”, “Picket Fences” and “Chicago Hope” before she was cast in the sixth season episode from “Friends” titled “The One Where Joey Loss His Insurance.”

But despite sharing screen time with Matt LeBlanc, Baird found she was hardly on the same level as the Friends stars.

“My husband and I are working-class actors,” she said of Patrick O’Connell, the father of Eilish and her producer/co-writer Finneas. “We were barely making ends meet and were able to spend a lot of time with our children, which was great.

“But the industry is mostly made up of people like us or people who aren’t even like us and can’t even do that,” she continued. “When all this happened to our children, we had never been on this page.

“I think that people don’t really understand that there’s a whole industry of people who are creative, working and struggling, living perfectly happy lives, feeling creative and feeling fulfilled. But it’s a completely different life than on this side of the door, where you’re suddenly playing in a different arena.”

In fact, ever since Eilish broke through with her debut album When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? In 2019, it was a whole different world for Baird’s family — especially for the “Birds of a Feather” singer, who was just 17 at the time.

Nevertheless, Baird managed to keep everything in perspective.

“People would always say to me, ‘Are you overwhelmed that Billie is playing Radio City or Madison Square Garden?’ ” she told Glamour. “And I thought, ‘I was blown away when she played The Hi Hat in Highland Park.’ [the Los Angeles neighborhood where the former 300-capacity club was located]. It’s all relative. You feel everything.

“You’re just a family, and it’s all normal, and then the world kind of puts everything else on top of it,” she added. “You get on stage in front of 100,000 people, and it lasts an hour and a half, and the rest of the time you sit at the dinner table and your brother humors you. The family part is the part that makes sure everything stays sane.”

While the musician kicked off her “Hit Me Hard and Soft” tour last Sunday – she visits the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey on October 9th before performing three shows at New York’s Madison Square Garden from October 16th to 18th –, Finneas just released his second album “For Crying Loud!” on Friday.

While Baird acknowledges that “everyone has an agenda” when it comes to their children, Baird’s parenting goals are very clear: “Your agenda is for your child to be happy, healthy, fulfilled and to give back to the world.”