Why She Doesn’t Feel the Nepo Baby Tag Applies to Her

“Yeah, people know who my dad is,” Elle told ABC News in 2015. “But I think that my voice and my music speaks for itself, that I am my own person.”

And she later resisted the label that the world was eager to slap on the kids of celebrities who also wanted to pursue that artist life. 

“I don’t think I ever really get scooted into the ‘nepo baby’ thing,” Elle said on an August 2024 episode of Off the Vine With Kaitlyn Bristowe. Rather than draw her toward show business, her dad was “more of a deterrent,” she added. “We weren’t super close when I was starting out performing, when I got signed. We really weren’t even speaking.”

And it was her mom who was “always just, like, telling me to take lessons,” Elle shared, “and she would drive me everywhere. And she took care of me and always made sure that I had some form of a creative outlet.”

She also credited Justin Tesa, her stepdad since 2000, for championing her career from the beginning.

“I am only a musician because of him,” the singer told ABC News. “I think that it was something that was inside of me, but he saw that and he definitely nurtured it and pushed me to, you know, dig deeper into music and step outside of things that were beyond just pop culture and, uh, learn about good rock and roll.”