The internet has discovered a new nepo baby.
Oscarwinning filmmaker Sophia Coppola And phoenix Romy Croquet Mars, the 16-year-old daughter of frontman Thomas Mars, has gone viral TikTok for sharing a truly chaotic story.
Just like your typical teenager, she had problems with her parents – and was grounded. But it wasn’t for a normal mistake like failing a school test or staying out of curfew. No, it was because she was trying to charter a helicopter from New York to Maryland to have dinner with a friend from summer camp — all with her dad’s credit card.
As revenge for her punishment, she decided to post a video on the social media platform showing how she makes pasta with vodka sauce. “I thought I’d do this since I’m already grounded because my parents biggest rule is I can’t have any public social media accounts,” she said in the 49-second clip. “Because they don’t want me to be a favoritism, but TikTok isn’t going to make me famous, so it doesn’t really matter.”
She’s not just any fake baby, but a fake grand baby – with legendary Hollywood director Francis Coppola of The Godfather fame as her grandfather. While her mother, Sofia Coppola, has an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for her film, lost in translation, and directed films such as The Virgin Suicides, Marie Antoinette And The Bling Ring. Coppola, however, is determined to keep her children out of the family business for now.
In a 2017 interview with The Guardian, the journalist described: “Coppola’s vigilance lifts slightly when the subject turns to her family: she staunchly keeps a low profile, insisting that her daughters’ lives remain largely unbroken through her career and her travels.”
“I don’t want them to ever get blunted,” she said at the time. “I never saw the point in taking little kids to movie premieres and stuff. I just want them to have a childhood.”
Director Sofia Coppola
/ Getty ImagesNevertheless, Romy has become a hit on social media with one Twitter user quick to point out, “She’s a fucking storyteller – just like her mom,” praising her for being what we want from celebrity kids, which is extremely entertaining is.
In part of the viral clip, she confesses that she doesn’t know the difference between onions and garlic. “I just had to Google images of onions on my phone,” she said. “I’m ashamed, I’m ashamed,” she added before returning to her onion and asking viewers, “Is this an onion? Because I feel like this doesn’t look like an onion. This looks like the inner workings of a ball sack.”
She then turned the camera on her babysitter’s boyfriend, who was petting a dog in the five-story West Village mansion her parents bought for $9.85 million in 2012. When she’s not filming cooking classes at the New York base, she’s likely visiting one of the family’s extensive real estate portfolios, including a villa in Bernalda, Italy (where Coppola and Mars married in 2011) and a vineyard in California.
“My parents are never home, so these are my replacement parents,” Romy joked, referring to her babysitter and the boyfriend.
Ironically, just days prior to Romy’s social media debut, her mother told theThe protector when asked when she last cried was: “Two weeks before shooting – after part of our funding fell – when the producers told me to cut a week’s worth of scenes from my script. I was on location and away from my daughters [currently in middle and high school] who I felt needed a mother,” referring to Romy and her little sister Cosima, 12.
Romy unfortunately never got around to making the promised pasta with vodka sauce, but promised fans for a TikTok part two. However, we may have to wait a bit as her account, which had 26,000 followers, was briefly deleted along with the chaotic video. “Why did Sofia Coppola’s daughter delete this? It’s art.” A Twitter user complained. “Sofia Coppola’s daughter is how to handle nepotism properly,” another agreed.
While the social media stunt has earned her a new legion of fans, it isn’t Romy’s first time in the public eye. In 2020, she made her modeling debut for cult Gen Z brand Heaven by Marc Jacobs, where she styled and shot all the images for the campaign herself.
The photos were shared on the designer’s Instagram page, with Marc Jacobs captioning the post: “I met you Romy shortly after you were born. It’s a beautiful journey watching you grow up and become such a cool and beautiful young woman. These portraits of you take me back in spirit to those good old days in the early 90’s where the beginnings of a long and lasting love story first began. Referring to his relationship with her mother Coppola, whom he met shortly after his infamous ’92 grunge collection for Perry Ellis. The two have since teamed up multiple times in the intervening two decades, with Coppola starring in many of Jacobs’ campaigns.
That same year, Romy attended the Marc Jacobs Fall 2020 runway show during New York Fashion Week along with her famous mother, where they saw pop star Miley Cyrus give a surprise performance. Romy has also lent her voice for Coppola’s film On The Rocks.
Given her stunning film debut – albeit via TikTok – she may eventually follow her mother into the industry. Personally, I’d love to see the heliport immortalized on the big screen. Or at least get a follow up on the social media platform.