Sydney Sweeney has been one of the most talked-about people of the past month or so — and not necessarily for the right reasons.
Back in July, the "Euphoria" star was unveiled as the face of American Eagle’s new denim campaign, which featured a ton of ads centering around the tagline “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans/genes.” Before long, a number of the ads were accused of implicitly glorifying whiteness and promoting eugenics, sparking what was probably one of the biggest celebrity controversies of the year so far.
The backlash went pretty much as follows: On Aug. 1, American Eagle issued a statement doubling down on the campaign and its themes, which was not received well. The White House defended the ad, Sydney was subsequently outed as a registered Republican, and then Donald Trump got involved to voice his support of the actor and her AE campaign.
Before this, the 27-year-old had been publicly apolitical, even when responding to backlash over pictures she posted from a family party where attendees could be seen wearing MAGA-style hats and “Blue Lives Matter” tops in the background.
Since then, Sydney has been catching a lot of heat online. Her movie "Americana," which was released on Aug. 15, also flopped at the box office.
Things are looking comparatively better for American Eagle as the brand’s shares have risen significantly since Sydney's divisive campaign launched.
But now, amid all the conversations, it sounds like Sydney is putting her focus on other things. (And no, I'm not talking about her rumored relationship with Scooter Braun.)
This week, Sydney is set to make her first major public appearance since the controversy at the Toronto International Film Festival. She is there promoting her upcoming movie, "Christy" — a biopic in which she stars as Christy Martin, the American fighter who helped put women’s boxing on the map in the mid-'90s.
And so, as she steps back into the ring (no pun intended), Sydney has made it clear that she won’t be delving into the American Eagle controversy anytime soon.
Directly addressing the backlash for the first time, she told Vanity Fair in a new interview: “I am there to support my movie and the people involved in making it, and I’m not there to talk about jeans. The movie’s about Christy, and that’s what I’ll be there to talk about.”
You can find the full Vanity Fair interview here, and we’ll be sure to keep you posted with any updates.