Sydney Sweeney Addresses American Eagle Jeans Backlash: “It Didn’t Affect Me One Way or the Other”

Sydney Sweeney is finally speaking out about the American Eagle jeans campaign that sparked a nationwide debate earlier this year.

In a cover story with GQ, she explained that the controversy never really affected her. “I did a jean ad. I mean, the reaction definitely was a surprise, but I love jeans. All I wear are jeans. I’m literally in jeans and a T-shirt every day of my life… I knew at the end of the day what that ad was for, and it was great jeans, it didn’t affect me one way or the other,” Sweeney said.

The campaign featured the tagline “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans,” a play on words that led to backlash online. Some social media users claimed the ads celebrated Sweeney’s white heritage and slim physique, with a few even comparing them to Nazi propaganda.

The controversy became so widespread that figures from Trump’s White House weighed in. Communications manager Steven Cheung called it a prime example of “cancel culture run amok,” and Vice President JD Vance mocked the outrage online, saying, “My political advice to the Democrats is continue to tell everybody who thinks Sydney Sweeney is attractive is a Nazi. That appears to be their actual strategy.”

President Donald Trump also commented, responding to reports that Sweeney was a registered Republican.

Despite all the attention, Sweeney said she largely ignored the backlash. “I kind of just put my phone away. I was filming every day. I’m filming ‘Euphoria,’ so I’m working 16-hour days and I don’t really bring my phone on set, so I work and then I go home and I go to sleep. So I didn’t really see a lot of it,” she told GQ.

She was aware, however, that American Eagle’s stock rose 38% during the controversy. “I was aware of the numbers as it was going. So when I saw all the headlines of in-store visits were down a certain percentage, none of it was true. It was all made up, but nobody could say anything because [the company was] in their quiet period. So it was all just a lot of talk,” Sweeney said.

Currently promoting her biopic Christy, about boxer Christy Martin, Sweeney addressed those who might judge her work based on her politics or the jeans campaign. “I think that if somebody is closed off because of something they read online to a powerful story like ‘Christy,’ then I hope that something else can open their eyes to being open to art and being open to learning, and I’m not going to be affected by that,” she said.

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