Copyright Screen Rant
Sydney Sweeney, one of the biggest rising stars in Hollywood right now, has finally directly responded to the controversy she found herself in the middle of at the end of July 2025. Sweeny's American Eagle Jeans ad quickly ignited backlash, with critics seeing the "genes/jeans" wordplay as having eugenic undertones and promoting racialized beauty standards. In a new interview with GQ, Sweeney is asked if she was surprised by the reaction, and she responds by suggesting it was just a job for her, advertising an article of clothing she lives and dies by: "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." Regarding President Donald Trump's reaction to the ad and backlash, Sweeney says: "It was surreal." GQ also suggested that it would feel good to have "somebody [having her] back in public, and conveniently some very powerful people," asking if Sweeney felt that way, and the star responded: I don't think…. It's not that I didn't have that feeling, but I wasn’t thinking of it like that, of any of it. 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. GQ also addressed the impact that the controversy had on American Eagle's business and how Sweeney felt about this. Check out the comments below: GQ: By some reports, American Eagle's stock price went up 38 percent. Does that make it less painful to be at the center of that much conversation, if you know that it really worked for the business that you're partnering with? Sydney Sweeney: 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. And because 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.
