Coco Arquette, Courteney Cox’s daughter, the new nepo-baby influencer in spite of herself

From Lila Moss to Apple Martin, Harper Seven Beckham, Violet Affleck and Suri Cruise, endless debates have arisen in recent months about the legitimacy of those known as nepo babies — children of celebrities who follow their parents’ steps. Now, a new generation of celebrity teens is stepping into the positions that their pedigrees dictate. Figures like Dakota Johnson, Zoë Kravitz, John David Washington, Lily-Rose Depp and Maya Hawke are already established in the industry. The latest figure to step into the public eye is one of the more reticent, but perhaps one with the greatest future: Coco Arquette.

Little is known about the daughter of Courteney Cox and David Arquette. She has been famous since before birth because of the long period of fertility treatments that the actress known for playing Monica Geller in Friends underwent. Cox said it was “terrible” filming the scene in which Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) gives birth to a baby right after the actress had one of her several miscarriages. After going under IVF treatment, the couple, who met while filming Scream in 1996, conceived their first and only daughter. They separated in 2013 and Arquette took up with a producer Christina McLarty with whom he had two other sons. This past March, the most recent installment of the saga that brought her parents together, Scream IV, led Coco to overcome her shyness: she decided to pose on the red carpet alongside her mother.

Until then, the only clues about the young woman’s life had come from social media. She doesn’t need to network: her family is one of the most privileged in Hollywood. Coco’s godmother, who calls her Cocolicious, is none other than Jennifer Aniston. As of last Christmas, she shares a tattoo of a paper airplane with Oscar winner Laura Dern and her two children. Stars like Michelle Pfeiffer and Lisa Kudrow wished her a happy birthday on Instagram. Her best friend is Iris Apatow, daughter of Judd Apatow and Leslie Mann and sister of Maude Apatow, known for playing Lexi in Euphoria.

But Coco most stands out for her unquestionable vocal talent. She is a promising singer. She uses her voice to entertain guests at the family mansion with her mother playing the keyboard. Also accompanied by Cox’s partner for the last decade, the musician Johnny McDaid, of the band Snow Patrol, the young woman has had the opportunity to share music with stars like Ed Sheeran, Elton John, Brandi Carlisle and Natasha Bedingfield. Even her mother is surprised by how naturally she adapts to the presence of global stars. “I cannot impress that girl. I just can’t. I’m like, ‘do you want to sing with Ed tonight?’ And she’ll say, ‘Mmm, no.’ I really bribe her to do things with me,” Cox said in an interview with Jimmy Kimmel.

Now, Coco is taking a gap year before starting college, a decision her mother celebrates for delaying her “empty-nest syndrome.” Despite her daughter’s little professional experience, Cox has made it clear that her daughter’s future will include acting. “She has been doing plays since kindergarten. She must have done some 33 musicals,” Cox says. The teen made her debut alongside her mother on the show Cougar Town, but the actress says she struggles with her daughter’s shyness: Coco feels “tortured” whenever she appears on her mother’s Instagram, and she refuses to watch her parents’ new films. “I have to negotiate. I use her for Instagram and she knows it and she really rebels, since she’s going to be in the business, I know. She’s going to have to get used to eyes on her,” says Cox.

And she’s on her way. Though her Instagram account has less than fifty posts, mostly taken by friends on vacation or at festivals like Coachella, she has more than 300,000 followers. A representative of Generation Z, she sports a wardrobe replete with winks to Y2K trends: crop tops, corsets, cut-outs and minidresses. Her aunt Patricia Arquette, who won an Oscar for Boyhood, revealed that the young woman gives her advice on awards ceremony outfits. We know little else about her. Her favorite food is sushi, though she eats pasta every day. Her intimates mention her sense of humor as one of her most notable qualities. And if she could choose, she would have pursued a relationship with Joey instead of Chandler.

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