Ruby Rose isn’t mincing words when it comes to “Christy,” the big-screen biopic starring Sydney Sweeney as boxing champion Christy Martin.
In a fiery post shared to Threads early Tuesday, the “Orange Is the New Black” actor tore into Sweeney’s portrayal of Martin while revealing she’d once been in the running for a part in the movie.
“The original Christy Martin script was incredible. Life changing. I was attached to play Cherry,” Rose wrote, likely alluding to the character of Rosie, based on Martin’s real-life girlfriend, Sherry Lusk. “Everyone had experience with the core material. Most of us were actually gay. It’s part of why I stayed in acting. Losing roles happens all the time.”
Rose, however, took specific issue with Sweeney’s representatives, who have been defending “Christy” publicly to HuffPost and other outlets after the movie earned just $1.3 million at the U.S. box office in its opening weekend, despite garnering respectable reviews at film festivals ahead of its release.
“For her PR to talk about it flopping and saying SS did it for the ‘people,’” she wrote. “None of ‘the people’ want to see someone who hates them, parading around pretending to be us.”
Addressing Sweeney specifically, she added, “You’re a cretin and you ruined the film. Period. Christy deserved better.”
Representatives for Sweeney did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment on Rose’s remarks. On Monday, however, the “Euphoria” actor defended her performance in “Christy” against naysayers focused on the film’s disappointing box office debut, noting that “we don’t always just make art for numbers, we make it for impact.”
“we all signed on to this film with the belief that christy’s story could save lives,” she wrote on Instagram. “thank you to everyone who saw, felt, and believed and will believe in this story for years to come. if christy gave even one woman the courage to take her first step toward safety, then we will have succeeded. so yes I’m proud.”
Sweeney, who will be seen opposite Amanda Seyfried in “The Housemaid” next month, was at the epicenter of a media firestorm in July after appearing in an American Eagle ad campaign that celebrated the way her “great genes” made her look in the brand’s “great jeans.”
Many viewers interpreted the ad’s use of the “jeans” double entendre as an allusion to eugenics, with some even likening it to “white supremacy” and “Nazi propaganda.”
The debate eventually reached the White House, with Vice President JD Vance suggesting the backlash was indicative of the reason Democrats had become less popular among young men, and President Donald Trump gloating over reports that Sweeney was a registered Republican.
In an interview with GQ published last week, Sweeney called Trump and Vance’s words of support “surreal,” but otherwise attempted to tread lightly on the controversy.