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Carys Zeta Douglas Reveals That Having Famous Parents Means She Constantly Has to ‘Prove’ Herself

Catherine Zeta Jones and Carys Zeta Jones
Catherine Zeta Jones and Carys Zeta Jones Victor Demarchelier

Growing up in the spotlight isn’t always easy — just ask Carys Zeta Douglas. The 15-year-old, whose parents are Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones, revealed that as a child she “didn’t like the idea of having” a famous last name. 

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“I think what bothers me the most is that people think I don’t work hard for it. That anything I do gets handed to me. When, honestly, I feel like it’s the opposite,” Carys, an aspiring actress, told the September issue of Town & Country. “I feel I need to constantly prove myself to people — that I am not just my parents’ daughter.”

Zeta-Jones, who shares the magazine’s cover with Carys, is proud of the people she and her husband of 17 years have raised. Carys aspires to attend an Ivy League college, while son Dylan, 17, is a freshman at Brown University in Rhode Island.

Catherine Zeta Jones and Carys Zeta Jones
Catherine Zeta Jones and Carys Zeta Jones Photographed by Victor Demarchelier/Town & Country

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“What I instilled in my kids, I’m very proud of it, is manners,” the 48-year-old Oscar winner told Town & Country. “There’s nothing worse than a privileged kid without manners. I drilled it into them like boot camp. The teenager years . . . She knows she cannot roll her eyes at me, or huff and puff around me. I never did it to my mother, and she’s not doing it to me.”

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Zeta-Jones boasted that she never has to worry about Carys showing too much skin. “She’s modern but age-appropriate. I’ve never had to turn to Carys and say, “I think that’s a little inappropriate,” said the Chicago actress. “Once she said, ‘Mom, I really like this romper.’ I went, ‘Mmm, but don’t you think it’s cut a little too long? Shouldn’t it be shorter?’ She went, ‘Mom, you’re the only mother in the world that would tell a 15-year-old girl that the romper should be shorter.”

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