Sydney Sweeney: The rising Hollywood star sparking debate

Almost exactly three years ago, in July 2022, actor Sydney Sweeney gave a surprisingly candid interview to The Hollywood Reporter about her finances.

At the time, Sweeney was 24, riding the wave of Euphoria‘s second season buzz and undeniably on the rise as one of Gen Z’s few in-demand actors. Yet, as she told the magazine, she couldn’t afford to take even a six-month break from work. Unlike some of her Euphoria co-stars, Sweeney isn’t a “nepo baby”—she grew up middle-class in northern Idaho and Spokane, Washington, and started acting at 13. She worked steadily through her teens—appearing in Criminal Minds, Grey’s Anatomy, and small roles in prestige projects like Sharp Objects, The Handmaid’s Tale, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood—because she had no financial safety net. “I don’t have someone supporting me, I don’t have anyone I can turn to, to pay my bills or call for help,” she said.

Even after landing a hit HBO show, which allowed her to buy a house in LA, money was tight. “They don’t pay actors like they used to, and with streamers, you no longer get residuals,” she explained. “The established stars still get paid, but I have to give 5% to my lawyer, 10% to my agents, 3% to my business manager. I have to pay my publicist every month, and that’s more than my mortgage.” Sweeney spoke with the precision of someone who actually tracks every expense—stylists, publicists, makeup, travel, and the unspoken costs of being a young, beautiful actor in the Instagram era. That’s why she takes so many brand deals—Miu Miu, Armani, Laneige. “If I just acted, I wouldn’t be able to afford my life in LA,” she admitted. “I take deals because I have to.”

I still think about that interview whenever Sweeney’s name comes up—which is often lately. For one, it’s the most transparent I’ve ever heard a young actor be about money. And two, it explains her increasingly omnipresent (and sometimes controversial) brand partnerships, which have arguably overshadowed her acting work. She doesn’t just represent high-end fashion like Miu Miu—she’s also selling soap with a “touch” of her bathwater for Dr. Squatch, ice cream for Baskin-Robbins, and fuzzy pink loafers for… someone.

Then there’s the recent American Eagle ad that landed her in the culture-war crosshairs. In one spot, as the camera pans over her zipping up tight blue jeans, she deadpans: “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality, and even eye color. My jeans are blue.” Another ad playfully scolds the camera for lingering too low: “Eyes up here.”

Predictably, the internet erupted. Critics on the left accused the ad of dog-whistling white supremacy with its “great genes” line, while the MAGA right hailed it as a blow against “wokeness.” (American Eagle insists the campaign was “always about the jeans.”) Trump even posted about it on Truth Social. And that was before reports surfaced that Sweeney registered as a Republican in Florida in June 2024.

Through all of this, Sweeney hasn’t publicly said a word. (Given her past comments about money and an old social media controversy involving MAGA family members, it’s safe to assume she supported Trump in 2024—and that she moved to Florida for a reason.)Sydney Sweeney moved to Florida for tax reasons, but until she confirms anything, these are just assumptions. How did a relatively successful Hollywood actor—who starred in the moderately popular 2024 rom-com Anyone But You—become so polarizing?

Two key factors explain it: first, social media’s obsession with shallow, short-lived culture wars, and second, Sweeney’s career-long balancing act between mocking male egos and playing into them.

The first issue is easier to spot. The American Eagle controversy followed a familiar pattern on X (formerly Twitter), a platform now mostly populated by bots, conservative commentators, business influencers, celebrity fan accounts, and liberals who still treat it like it’s 2018. The ad, designed to provoke, worked perfectly on all these groups. The outrage snowballed over a weekend, caught Fox News’ attention, then spread to MAGA politicians looking for an easy target—and eventually, inevitably, to the former president who never misses a chance to jump on a trending topic. In today’s online economy, what matters isn’t whether the outrage is real, but whether people are talking about it.

Regardless of how many people were actually upset (I suspect most were just tired of the discourse), the backlash highlights Sweeney’s long-standing strategy: acknowledging—and now profiting from—male fixation on her body while staying ruthlessly business-minded. Both tactics are questionable and, in my opinion, becoming less effective.

I’ve been a fan of Sweeney since her breakout role in The White Lotus (2021), where she played a darkly funny Gen Z antagonist. But I noticed a shift around 2022, around the time of her revealing Hollywood Reporter interview. When I spoke with her in 2021, the then-23-year-old was candid about her career ambitions—getting a business degree to avoid being exploited in contract negotiations, producing her own projects—while also wary of online outrage. At the time, she was promoting The Voyeurs, an erotic thriller in which she appeared nude, while also dealing with leaked nude scenes from Euphoria. Her coping mechanism? Detachment. “I never actually put Syd out there,” she told me. “No one really knows Syd.”

Since then, Sweeney has leaned into the attention—especially from the male right, who see her as a return to “traditional” beauty standards—by turning it into both profit and a joke. She mocked the obsession with her body in an SNL Hooters skit, wore a sweatshirt that read “SORRY FOR HAVING GREAT TITS AND CORRECT OPINIONS,” and routinely addresses the elephant (or rather, the boobs) in the room with blunt confidence. “The biggest misconception about me is that I’m a dumb blonde with big tits,” she joked in an interview last year. “I’m naturally a brunette.”

At the same time, she’s embraced the pop-feminist mantra of “getting the bag.” She took a role in the critically panned Madame Web as a “business decision” to network with Sony executives, self-promoted Anyone But You on TikTok, and balanced commercial projects (Immaculate) with producing her own horror films.

Unfortunately, all this has overshadowed her talent as a dramatic actor. Her standout performance in Reality as a real-life whistleblower full of tension and moral conviction proved her depth, and The Voyeurs—a stylish erotic thriller that deserved more attention—showed her range. But in today’s media landscape, the noise around her persona often drowns out her actual work.Sydney Sweeney first caught attention on Euphoria, where she brought raw teenage energy to the troubled character Cassie. Despite the recent political debate around her, Sweeney’s career hasn’t slowed down. She’s pushing for awards recognition with Christy, playing 90s boxer Christy Martin, and generating buzz with The Housemaid, a Paul Feig film co-starring Amanda Seyfried. She’s also landed major roles in two high-profile video game adaptations with directors Michael Bay and Jon M. Chu, and will play 1950s icon Kim Novak in Colman Domingo’s directorial debut, Scandalous!. Most recently, she starred alongside Julianne Moore in another underwhelming Apple TV+ film.

As an actress, she’s still the same driven young woman from three years ago—sharp about the business, taking on diverse projects, and steadily building her résumé. Here’s hoping the focus shifts back to her work where it belongs.