Sydney Sweeney has given her most in-depth comment on the furore that erupted following her controversial American Eagle jeans advertisement – and her first attempt at tackling the matter only intensified the outrage.
The 28-year-old actress came under scrutiny in July, when the marketing campaign “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans” – a pun on “great genes” – ignited backlash on social media. Many alleged American Eagle was “leaning into eugenics” and glorifying Sweeney’s whiteness, with some accusing the brand of being Nazis. Far-right commentators, meanwhile, applauded Sweeney for helping “end cancel culture”.
Sydney Sweeney has given her first in-depth comment directly addressing the allegations that her American Eagle jeans advertisement is Nazi propaganda.Credit: Evan Agostini/Invision/AP
The noise was so loud that US President Donald Trump weighed in, saying, “She’s a registered Republican? Oh, now I love her ad! You’d be surprised at how many people are Republicans… If Sydney Sweeney is a registered Republican, I think her ad is fantastic!” (The Guardian revealed in August she had registered as a Republican voter in Florida before the 2024 election).
“I was honestly surprised by the reaction,” Sweeney told People in an exclusive interview, published on Saturday, which the magazine billed as an “emotional response” to the controversy.
American Eagle has maintained the campaign “is and always was about the jeans”, writing on Instagram in August, “We’ll continue to celebrate how everyone wears their AE jeans with confidence, their way. Great jeans look good on everyone.”
Sweeney’s campaign helped drive a record 38 per cent surge in shares in the company, adding $US900 million ($1.36 billion) to its market capitalisation.
The Euphoria star told People that she did the campaign because she loves jeans and the brand. The actress said she “leads with kindness”, with the publication reporting Sweeney wanted to address the controversy again to “dispel negativity” and “clarify her stance”.
“I don’t support the views some people chose to connect to the campaign,” Sweeney said. “Many have assigned motives and labels to me that just aren’t true.”
“Anyone who knows me knows that I’m always trying to bring people together. I’m against hate and divisiveness,” Sweeney added.
The Emmy nominee is promoting her third film release for 2025, Paul Feig’s The Housemaid. The press tour, before this controversy, would have been a victory lap after a mammoth year.
Sweeney capped off 2024 having secured Hollywood It Girl status, with many critics and fans billing her as potentially the next Julia Roberts or Angelina Jolie.
But the public response to the American Eagle campaign and the subsequent box office flop of Christy – Australian director David Michod’s biopic about American boxer Christy Martin – had the same people questioning whether her star was falling as rapidly as it had risen.
Her first attempt to address the American Eagle backlash was in a GQ “Men of the Year” cover story in November.
Sweeney broke a three-month silence by telling journalist Katherine Stoeffel that she was “definitely” surprised by the reaction to the campaign, and that “it was surreal” to have Trump and Vice President JD Vance comment on it, but “it didn’t affect me one way or the other”.
Sweeney notably stopped short of denouncing the far-right views that critics had associated with the campaign, further infuriating them.
Sweeney, pictured here in the American Eagle campaign, has addressed the controversy twice since the advertisements went live in July. The first time, in a GQ interview in November, infuriated critics even more.
The actress also told GQ that she had not been tempted to put together a formal statement explaining or defending the campaign because she has “always believed that I’m not here to tell people what to think”.
“I know who I am. I know what I value. I know that I’m a kind person,” Sweeney said in November. “I know that I love a lot, and I know that I’m just excited to see what happens next. And so I don’t really let other people define who I am.”
In the People interview, however, Sweeney showed she understands the consequences of that approach, yet once again she stopped short of directly addressing the specific accusations, and made no apologies.
“In the past my stance has been to never respond to negative or positive press, but recently I have come to realise that my silence regarding this issue has only widened the divide, not closed it,” Sweeney told the magazine. “So I hope this new year brings more focus on what connects us instead of what divides us.”
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Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: www.smh.com.au
