Flaawsome Talk with Kjersti Flaa - It Was No Accident !!

00:00:00.000 How can having the face of and being the son of the most famous supermodel of the world become your biggest curse?

00:00:13.960 Hi and welcome to Flossom Talk. I'm Sashdi Floor, journalist, Hollywood truth teller and your voice of reason in a town built on delusion.

00:00:22.340 okay how can you be born with everything and that everything is the thing that destroys you

00:00:31.740 in the end that is the thing so many people have been asking themselves lately i'm sure you've seen

00:00:38.680 the news everywhere this week what happened to supermodel cindy crawford and billionaire randy

00:00:46.220 Gerber's son. He was only 27 years old when he passed away from what people are suspecting

00:00:53.880 was an overdose. I'm not going to talk about his addiction in this episode because I think it's

00:01:00.300 been enough focus on that and how he himself even was really open about that. I think the

00:01:05.740 important thing to talk about here is how is it possible to grow up with loving parents as far as

00:01:13.220 we know. You have the money, the looks, the connections. You have all the possibilities

00:01:18.920 in front of you and you have a family that really loves you. I think it's time to talk about the real

00:01:27.180 curse of being called a Nepo baby. Everyone knew that Presley was Cindy Crawford's son. He even

00:01:34.720 inherited the mold on his face. The family lived a pretty down-to-earth life in Malibu. Both of the

00:01:43.140 kids, Kaya, his younger sister as well, have spoken about how they had a pretty normal upbringing

00:01:49.240 and it also seems like their parents were supporting that. But still you can't run away

00:01:54.880 from the fact that your mom is one of the world's most famous supermodels and your dad is a

00:02:01.580 billionaire and best friends with George Clooney. So how are you as a child going to fit into that?

00:02:07.540 I think that was Presley's biggest challenge and I believe that the burden of having to find your

00:02:15.460 own identity when everyone is just associating you with who your mother is that can be a real curse

00:02:24.180 and I don't know if that is the reason why Presley decided to get a tattoo on his face saying

00:02:31.340 misunderstood. He knew that his face was precious from early on. When he was only a teenager, he got

00:02:38.580 signed by a model agency, mainly because he was the son of Cindy Crawford. He still had the good

00:02:45.580 looks, but would he have been signed on to this agency if he wasn't her son? We don't really know

00:02:51.400 that. But think about the idea that you're making a living from your looks at that young age, and

00:02:56.760 then you decide to go and do something so destructive. He did an interview with Teen Vogue

00:03:03.080 where he was asked about the decision why he put this tattoo on his face and he said,

00:03:09.200 I don't feel very understood, I guess. He kind of tried to explain to people what the tattoo meant

00:03:15.940 to him personally, but people were still attacking him and kept the conversation to only what was

00:03:22.540 happening on the outside and with all the backlash he received on social media people calling him a

00:03:28.800 spoiled brat the nepo baby it really got to him and later he said that if he knew that getting

00:03:34.700 that tattoo would have ruined his face he wouldn't have chosen to put it there and then he made an 0.87

00:03:40.460 instagram post comparing the reactions that he got to his face tattoo with people doing plastic

00:03:46.520 surgery and doing gender transitions and that post also created a lot of criticism and people

00:03:54.780 like you can't compare these experiences so the way that he was trying to express himself

00:04:00.600 that he was misunderstood made people maybe misunderstand him even more then just a year

00:04:08.060 later that tattoo was gone he decided to remove it i don't know maybe it wasn't a permanent tattoo

00:04:15.640 but it wasn't there anymore when he got the tattoo the tattoo artist who did it on his face

00:04:23.020 put the picture on his instagram and captioned it sorry mom so the world would think that he was

00:04:29.940 rebelling against his mom i don't know the reason why he did it but people mocked him for it and

00:04:36.260 the narrative became privileged celebrity son ruins his beautiful face to me it seemed like

00:04:43.840 Presley was just trying to express himself, trying to find his own identity. And he didn't just want

00:04:50.780 to be Cindy Crawford's son. And another incident that proves this was something that Cindy Crawford

00:04:57.940 came out and talked about in an interview herself, that when he was younger, he wanted to remove

00:05:04.580 the birthmark. As you probably know, the birthmark that Cindy Crawford has on her face is one of the

00:05:11.280 things that made her face so recognizable her beauty mark is almost as famous as she is and

00:05:18.480 Presley inherited her beauty mark and he wanted it gone so Cindy talks about this how she actually

00:05:28.440 brought him to the doctor to talk about how it could get removed and the doctor told him that

00:05:34.720 you might have a little scar if you want to do it. And he was considering removing it. But then

00:05:41.140 he ended up not doing it after all. But I think that says a lot about how he wanted to remove

00:05:47.360 himself from just being Cindy Crawford's son. And I don't think that he wanted to do that

00:05:52.980 to punish his mother or that there were any issues that he had with his mom. He was just looking for

00:06:00.200 his own identity. But Presley's problems didn't just start with this tattoo that he put on his

00:06:05.540 face. He was arrested in 2018 after suspicious of driving under the influence. And that story

00:06:13.160 also became public and people were again, you know, look at the Nepo baby. We've seen this story

00:06:18.580 before. And after people had enough opinions about Presley, he decided to come out and talk about

00:06:24.100 things, he eventually began speaking for himself. And he went on Studio 22, a podcast in 2023,

00:06:31.100 where he talked about his life, his struggles, and how he ended up where he was at this point.

00:06:38.720 So this was only three years ago. And he was really opening up about his mental issues,

00:06:44.620 and also his substance abuse. And then he said that he wanted to use what he's been going through

00:06:50.460 to help other people who's also struggling with similar problems with addiction, with mental

00:06:57.380 health issues. He started a series on his Instagram called Mental Health Mondays. In this podcast,

00:07:03.780 he also talked about the beginning of his modeling career. He mentioned that in 2017, I guess then he

00:07:14.020 was just 17 years old he said that that was his big first big photo shoot and he went with his

00:07:20.580 sister kaya to florida to do this shoot and he passed out on the set because he wasn't used to

00:07:28.800 the humidity on the set and he was exhausted afterwards but then he saw the pictures and he

00:07:35.320 continued doing modeling jobs after that after about five minutes in on this podcast i think he

00:07:41.780 says something really revealing look if modeling is what you love to do if modeling is what you

00:07:47.780 want your career to be and what you want to be known for then go in i think if you're going to

00:07:53.560 do anything do it 100 right but for me it was more of like i know i have business ideas i know

00:08:00.300 there's going to be things i'm going to want to do later in life so it was more of like a i want

00:08:05.240 to say passive income because it was my main income but it was income for the future yes i

00:08:11.020 talked about how he saw modeling not as a career but as a way to get income for his future I thought

00:08:18.740 that was very interesting considering that his father is a billionaire and his mom obviously

00:08:25.640 has a lot of money as well so to me that tells me that his parents said you know you have to make

00:08:32.380 your own money you have to go out there and create your own career and I just think that says a lot

00:08:37.940 about what they're like as parents you know they're not giving they're not handing everything

00:08:42.340 over to their kids they're like hey here's your tools we can open some doors for you but you have

00:08:48.640 to earn it and you have to make your own money and I think that is a very healthy way of looking at

00:08:53.540 things people have been discussing a lot if Cindy Crawford should have allowed her children to get

00:08:59.560 into modeling at such a young age she knows the industry she knows all the challenges and how 0.96

00:09:05.440 damaging it can be and I'm not sure how I feel about that myself to be honest with you but she

00:09:11.100 also said that she would never have allowed them to work with people that she didn't know and that

00:09:17.660 she didn't trust and that she was always on top of things making sure that they were safe. That being

00:09:24.500 said she could control the sets and the people surrounding her children but she could not control

00:09:30.940 what was going on inside their minds in this interview presley also talks about how it was

00:09:38.740 difficult for him to know what to do with the downtime a lot of downtime like i said like i

00:09:44.880 mentioned and uh and you know modeling you could get booked with you could be working uh january

00:09:52.100 through february and then you have no idea and you have no idea when you're going to get paid for

00:09:58.420 that. You have no idea when the next job's coming up. There's a lot of unknowing. Listening to

00:10:05.120 Presley in this interview makes him come across as a very down-to-earth guy. He seems very

00:10:10.800 sympathetic. He's reflecting over things. He seems like he's grown up. And he also talks about

00:10:17.060 how he's been able to see who his real friends are versus his fake friends. And that is a thing

00:10:25.040 that i think maybe people underestimate a lot when you are born into privilege like he was

00:10:31.140 how do you ever know if people are real with you if they want to be your friend because of who you

00:10:39.480 are or if they want to be your friend because of who your parents are and when you realize over and

00:10:46.180 over and over again that people want to be your friends for the wrong reason i think that can do

00:10:52.860 a lot to a person. So I think that even though Presley enjoyed modeling, it didn't give him any

00:10:59.660 purpose. And I think that was what he was looking for. And maybe he found that a little bit when he

00:11:05.260 started opening up about his mental struggles, that he got a lot of positive feedback from people

00:11:10.560 for being so honest about it. His sister Kaya has also talked about their relationship and how close

00:11:16.780 they are or close they were. And she said in an interview pretty recently that she early on in her

00:11:22.620 life decided that she was going to be the easy child because her brother had so many problems

00:11:28.460 that she wanted her parents to have one child that was easy and I don't know how that must feel like

00:11:35.460 for Presley to hear something like that that he has been such a burden to them that his sister

00:11:41.540 had to make kind of sacrifices for that I'm not saying that Kaya shouldn't have said this I just

00:11:47.680 think that we have to look at all these little pieces and put them together to understand

00:11:52.220 what happened to Presley. Then in November of last year, Presley said that he was going to step away

00:11:59.760 from posting for a while. So he had put himself out there to help other people with their struggles

00:12:05.300 and then he revealed that he could not help himself. And then he did follow up with the post

00:12:11.220 in December of last year where he said that he had recently experienced loss in many different

00:12:18.320 forms. He spoke about panic attacks and the medications he was taking, which were a lot.

00:12:25.160 That is a full story in itself. Every medication he was on, I mean, it is insane. He said that he

00:12:32.440 had talked to as many as 15 psychiatrists and that he was frightened by how differently doctors

00:12:40.980 talked about his treatment. Anyways, going back to his childhood a little bit here, Cindy has

00:12:47.280 expressed several times how she really tried to give her children a normal upbringing in Malibu.

00:12:54.720 Kaya has talked about how she was out in the ocean every single day and that's something that

00:13:00.380 Presley said that he appreciated as well and some days they would just go to school barefoot in a

00:13:06.780 wetsuit. It sounded very idyllic and maybe it even was. Cindy Crawford literally has the model

00:13:14.520 family. From an early age, 23-year-old daughter Kaya and 25-year-old son Presley have been walking

00:13:20.860 in their mother's legendary runway footsteps. Oh, and dad Randy Gerber, he's also a former model

00:13:27.140 and now businessman. And Kaya also talked about this recently in an interview where she was

00:13:32.460 sitting next to her mom and her brother and she talks about how her mom was protective but she

00:13:39.120 was never like a stage mom. Cindy how did you juggle it all being mom and supermodel and

00:13:44.700 businesswoman? The greatest thing about having kids is you just you instantly know your priorities

00:13:49.120 you know it's always family first. I think you told in preschool there was like you know what

00:13:55.420 do your parents do for work and you told your preschool teachers that that I didn't work and I

00:14:00.860 was like wow that means i'm doing a great job because he doesn't feel my absence so much so

00:14:06.440 there's not really any evidence that presley's parents were not present in his life but there

00:14:13.160 was something really revealing in this interview that presley said when did you first realize that

00:14:18.700 your mom was not like the other moms it was definitely the attention like when people would

00:14:24.700 walk by and you're like oh my god that's Cindy Crawford I was like yeah yeah I think I'm pretty

00:14:30.980 sure it is yeah he was pointing out the fact that everyone was recognizing his mother look there's

00:14:36.660 Cindy Crawford and he was like yeah that's Cindy Crawford that reminded me of an interview I did

00:14:42.100 with mommy Gummer Meryl Streep's daughter and we talked about what it was like to grow up

00:14:47.480 with a very famous mother and I asked her what it was like when people recognized her mom

00:14:52.980 everywhere they go they went to have dinner and people were like pointing at her and she said

00:14:58.220 that she felt very protective of her mother and she also said that she hated it. I had a pretty

00:15:04.080 normal upbringing. Do you remember when you realized that my mother is famous what that

00:15:09.620 whole thing meant? You know when you go out for dinner or whatever and people are looking and

00:15:14.840 they're like oh wow there's yeah yeah it drove me nuts as a kid it really it it did and it it still

00:15:23.080 does a little bit i get really protective of her that was always my um role was to kind of like

00:15:29.200 be the bodyguard yeah i can see that because everyone wants a piece of her and you're like 1.00

00:15:34.800 she's my mom yeah yeah leave her alone she just wants to eat and i can imagine that presley did

00:15:43.300 not like when people recognized his mother in the public space. I think the fact also that Cinder

00:15:50.820 Crawford represented a very superficial world. Everything is based on the way you look and when 0.93

00:15:58.940 you are the children of a supermodel people are going to start judging your appearance instantly

00:16:05.500 as well. Yeah everyone just starts deciding what their faces are worth. So again how can someone

00:16:11.640 who has everything feel so misunderstood. I think maybe the problem starts when people say that you

00:16:20.240 have everything and by that they mean the money, the access, the fame, the connections but those

00:16:32.060 things are not everything. Those are just things. So how does a person that has everything

00:16:40.300 find out who they really are i think that is the core of the problem for a lot of these celebrity

00:16:49.700 children they don't know where they belong and the world is telling them constantly that you

00:16:57.100 can't suffer because you have everything you're not allowed to feel pain because you can fix it

00:17:05.600 You have all the money, you have all the connections, we don't feel sorry for you.

00:17:11.640 And there are so many other celebrity children that end up in situations similar to the one

00:17:19.320 Presley Gerber found himself in.

00:17:21.780 Michael Douglas' son, Cameron, we know he's been struggling with addiction for years.

00:17:27.900 He even went to prison for it.

00:17:29.960 And in a letter to the judge, Michael Douglas actually wrote about the pressure of finding identity under a famous name and acknowledged the role of Gene's family and peers in his son's life.

00:17:43.620 Of course, he knew a lot about this being the son of Kirk Douglas, another famous actor himself.

00:17:49.640 And there's Robert Downey Jr. and his son.

00:17:52.580 We know that Robert himself had issues when he was younger.

00:17:56.340 And something similar happened to his son, Indio, who also faced drug charges.

00:18:02.240 And another one, Tom Hank's son, Chet.

00:18:04.600 He also talked publicly and described the intense pressure, feelings of worthlessness,

00:18:10.920 and the belief that he had to do something extraordinary simply to justify his place in the world.

00:18:17.860 And it's also very obvious how the press is also playing a part in this.

00:18:23.220 The headlines of Nepo Baby this and Nepo Baby that,

00:18:26.700 they're just there because their parents are famous.

00:18:29.320 And I agree, these children get a lot more opportunities

00:18:32.800 if their parents were famous.

00:18:34.880 They have so much more to prove.

00:18:36.880 And I think it's hard for the rest of us to understand that.

00:18:40.900 And we can always say, you know, you're so privileged, you're so spoiled,

00:18:44.960 and you're cheating because you're going ahead of everyone else here

00:18:48.340 and you're giving the opportunities that other people with unfamous parents

00:18:53.260 should have gotten instead of you because they are more talented than you are.

00:18:57.880 But even though your parents are giving you all these opportunities

00:19:01.240 that normal children will never have,

00:19:03.980 they will never be able to give you an identity that feels authentic.

00:19:08.700 And there's never any guarantee that your child will feel worthy without your surname.

00:19:14.280 So how do these kids ever know if people truly love them for who they are?

00:19:19.740 And will they ever believe that they truly earned the success?

00:19:23.840 And what if they fail?

00:19:25.540 The world will tell them, how could you fail?

00:19:29.060 You were given every single opportunity.

00:19:32.880 And if you're unhappy, are you really allowed to admit that?

00:19:36.800 And how can your suffering be real?

00:19:39.020 How can your pain be real when you have everything?

00:19:43.240 I don't know the answers to all these things

00:19:45.820 I'm just trying to remind everyone

00:19:47.820 to maybe have a little more empathy

00:19:49.400 the next time you see a headline

00:19:51.620 with the Nepo baby term in it

00:19:54.280 anyways that's it for me today you guys

00:19:56.620 thank you so much for watching

00:19:58.020 and thank you for all your support

00:19:59.820 and the tips that you're sending me

00:20:01.320 please keep them coming

00:20:02.480 tips at flawsome talk dot com

00:20:05.360 and if you haven't subscribed yet

00:20:07.120 please do and hit the notification bell as well

00:20:10.260 so you never miss an episode of flawsome talk

00:20:12.620 and i'll see you tomorrow bye growing up with a parent that's really famous is probably

00:20:19.080 kind of challenging sometimes do did how did you prepare your kids and how did you explain to that

00:20:25.760 what what mommy was doing you know it's weird because we really made an attempt to

00:20:33.860 move them out of the public eye i never had them photographed as children and really

00:20:41.420 was very

00:20:43.580 adamant that they not

00:20:45.720 be seen as my adorable

00:20:47.960 props and

00:20:49.920 tried to keep them out

00:20:52.000 and as a result they all wanted to be in show

00:20:54.120 business. I mean I swear

00:20:56.240 to God

00:20:56.800 I was thinking

00:20:59.460 we'll live near an ecological

00:21:01.920 center and they'll become

00:21:03.260 you know environmental scientists

00:21:06.240 doesn't happen. Nope.

00:21:08.140 The apple doesn't fall far.

00:21:11.420 Talk.

Flaawsome Talk with Kjersti Flaa - September 24, 2026

It Was No Accident !!

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