Hayley Hasselhoff weighed in on Hollywood’s ongoing ‘nepo baby’ debate as she recently insisted kids of celebrities are not inherently undeserving of their success.
While attending the Remus pre-award tea time event at The Beverly Hills Hotel last month, the daughter of Baywatch’s David Hasselhoff and Pamela Bach proudly told DailyMail.com that her career stemmed from years of hard work and dedication to her craft.
From a young age, the determined entertainer said she was adamant to prove that her talent came first, before any potential family connections.
At just 17, Hayley landed a lead role in the 2010 ABC Family show, Huge, following a lengthy audition process.
The 30-year-old curve model and influencer went on to say that the entertainment industry is full of people making misconceptions about the reasons famous offspring tend to follow their family into the business.
Speaking up: Hayley Hasselhoff has weighed in on Hollywood’s ongoing ‘nepo baby’ debate as she insisted children of celebrities are not inherently undeserving of their success; seen in March 2023
Making her mom and dad proud! While attending the Remus pre-award tea time event at The Beverly Hills Hotel last month, the daughter of Baywatch star David and actress Pamela Bach stated that her career came from years of hard work (seen above with her parents in 2019)
‘It’s difficult because at the end of the day, everybody’s journey is going to be different,’ Hayley said.
She continued: ‘So you can’t compare everybody’s journey on how they got into the industry if they are a nepo baby, or, however you call it.’
‘But at the end of the day, I know mine – and mine was a very genuine one,’ The Hasselhoffs alum said. ‘I had to get my own agent. I got my own agent at 14. I auditioned for it like everybody else.’
As she looked back on booking the lead role on Huge, Hayley set the record straight that she went through every single step that you would’ve had to go through that everybody else would’ve had to.’
‘And it’s a trying time, because they know as well if they’re booking you that it’s going to come with a certain perception,’ she reflected.
This pushed her to always show up and ‘be prepared’ as well as ‘passionate about what’ she was performing.
‘We did a reality show called the Hasselhoffs on A&E and you see me booking my job for Huge, and I’m literally bawling my eyes out,’ she raved.
‘I’m bawling my eyes out because I was like, ‘Do you know how much I’ve been through?” she continued.
‘I had to get my own agent. I got my own agent at 14. I auditioned for it like everybody else ,’ she said (seen above on The X Factor: Celebrity in 2019)
‘I knew how hard I wanted this and how much training and how much just therapy to be an actor really brought me to that place. So it was a dream from true.’
Hayley says she has experienced different reactions to being a famous actor’s daughter.
‘I’ve definitely had specific situations that have been tough, and then I’ve had ones that have been welcoming,’ the star admitted.
‘But I think it’s the end of the day, I’d say I have had few situations when I was first starting out where I would go into auditions and I’d feel the misconception, and I kind of just would sit there and be like, ‘Well, let me show you why I’m here.”
‘I think that’s always kind of been my attitude. I have always said, ‘Well, let me show you why I’m here.”
‘I’ve definitely had specific situations that have been tough, and then I’ve had ones that have been welcoming,’ the star reflected on growing up with famous parents (pictured in 2019)
She appeared on her family’s short-lived reality show, The Hasselhoffs, in 2010 (seen with both parents and sister Taylor (L)
‘My art will speak for itself, and I don’t think that I need to speak for it. And if it’s not here, that’s okay, because it’s a lesson to be learned and it’ll be the next. ‘
Hayley also argued that her parents actively dissuaded Hayley towards their business in her youth.
But, while she shied away from appearing in school productions, Hayley found pleasure in taking up personal acting classes.
While her parents did not push her into acting, despite knowing she wanted to be a screen star as a toddler, she said it was a blessing ‘to see’ her mom and dad ‘follow their hearts’ professionally.
‘I guess that was an option in life to be able to be a storyteller, to be able to be on set and create something with a group of people who all wanted to be able to do something to get that final product,’ she insisted.
Hayley went on to recall that she ‘always knew’ she wanted to be an actress and started telling others at just ‘two, three or four.’
‘But it took some time. My family was very realistic about it,’ she remembered.
After doing ‘some things on Baywatch’ as a kid, the actress said she ‘had one really bad audition where’ she ‘had to cuss’ at just six-years-old.
‘I remember running out being like, ‘They made me cuss!’’ And my family was like, well, maybe we’ll wait a little bit,’ she mused. ‘And I then put myself into an acting school at a young age, where it was actually just me and a teacher in my early teens, and it really was just therapy for me.’
‘It was a way for me to really release my emotions through somebody else, and I needed that,’ she said.
‘So there’s a very sentimental relationship between me and acting more than anything else that I do.
‘And I know that when we speak all the arts, I think it’s so important for children just to be able to get into it.
Busy: In addition to her hosting gigs on This Morning (UK) and for Good Morning America, she said that she’s been ‘traveling over to Utah to talk to adolescent kids in mental health programs’
‘I actually didn’t do theater in school because of the relationship to my family, I think really because I think I didn’t want people to think that I was just doing it to do it.
‘And it was kind of a surprise for everybody when I booked the lead on Huge because it was my secret, it was my therapy, and it had such a sentimental value to it.’
Hayley, who enjoyed a strong career across the entertainment sphere, also teased that there are ‘a lot of wonderful things in the pot’ coming up soon.
‘One of the biggest things right now for me, that I can speak, about, and that I love speaking about, is really just being a huge mental health advocate,’ she noted.
‘I just did 15 plays last month for many different things. I’m a fashion host for This Morning (UK) and for Good Morning America amongst all other things,’ Hayley said. ‘And so through those jobs, I’ve actually been traveling over to Utah to talk to adolescent kids in mental health programs.
She concluded that she’s ‘really immersing’ herself ‘into understanding what needs to change in the mental health community globally, but most importantly, in America.’