Johnny Cash's son John reveals the dark side of being a nepo baby after turmoil of growing up in his father's shadow amid addiction battle: 'You will for ever be remembered as their son, not as yourself'

The term 'nepo baby' is becoming more prevalent than ever, with more and more celebrity offspring looking to hit the big time. 

Bill Hudson and Goldie Hawn's daughter Kate Hudson has just received both Oscar and BAFTA nominations, while Miley Cyrus has by far surpassed the fame of her country singer dad Billy Ray. 

However for others it isn't quite that easy. 

Growing up as the only son of Johnny Cash and June Carter, John Carter Cash has revealed all about the more challenging side of being a nepo baby. 

His late father is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, selling over 90 million records with hits including I Walk The Line and Ring Of Fire. 

But for John this only made it harder to follow in his footsteps and carve out a life of his own, especially when he had the same name, and profession, as him. 

Expressing how it feels to be child of such a legendary figure he admitted in an interview with The Times: 'You feel like a lot has been placed on you. You will for ever be remembered as their son, not as yourself.' 

Choosing to not just become a Johnny Cash remake, the nepo baby has pursued his own career as a singer. 

He has released solo albums, produced artists including Emmylou Harris to Elvis Costello and published a series of children's books.

He confessed: 'Being the child of a famous person may open the door, but it doesn’t keep you there. You’ve got to forge your own path.'

Yet he is hoping his biggest career success to date will be his new musical, The Ballad of Johnny and June, which tells the story about his parents and their life together. 

After being approached by director Des McAnuff with the idea of a musical John was keen to represent his parents for who they really were and not just a 'happily ever after' marriage. 

Johnny married June in 1968 after he fell in love with her while they were performing and the pair began an affair, he was married to his first wife Vivian Liberto at the time.

Yet despite finding the woman of his dreams, the musician was battling an extensive drug addiction. 

He previously said: 'I had become habituated to amphetamines and barbiturates and alcohol – all three at the same time. That combination is deadly poisonous. I got up to a habit of as many as a hundred pills a day and a case of beer.'

Confirming how his dad still suffered with addiction during his parents' marriage, John explained that during the 1980s they had to stage an intervention. 

He said his mother was also on painkillers and opiates in the later years of her life. 

Yet he doesn't want the musical to see they story as a tragedy, but rather to reflect how he learnt to love them through their addiction. 

John explained: 'My parents were in love from the moment they got together until they died, but that’s not to say it was all wonderful. I had someone come up to me and say, "What’s it like to be the product of the greatest love affair in music?" I said, "Evidently, you weren’t there".'

The star is also hoping to dispel any misconceptions that Cash was a 'dark figure' and says he was an incredibly hard worker and had a strong sense of humour. 

With a relaxed attitude to parenting, Johnny also shared four daughters with his first wife, and June had a son and a daughter from her first marriage, they never pressured him to do his homework but always wanted the family to play music together. 

Speaking about his parents relationship in an promotional clip from the film he said: 'My father was a deep person. He was well educated, as was my mother. 

'My parents had so many wonderful qualities, and they, of course, fell short, but they had a way of forgiving each other. And so I wanted that sense of unconditional love to be at the forefront for this play.' 

Being the son of a musician inevitable leads to a less than ordinary childhood, and John travelled the world with his parents from a young age until his dad retired in 1997, when John was 27. 

Staying in cheap motels together while on the road, John would also join his dad in the studio, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Nick Cave, The Clash's Joe Strummer and producer Rick Rubin. 

His life was inextricably tied up with his parents, and now aged 55 John has accepted he will always be loved primarily due to who his parents are, a legacy he will never be able to separate himself from.