What’s Subsequent for Sydney Sweeney After American Eagle Jeans Controversy?

‘Tis the season of Sydney Sweeney. It simply now comes with an asterisk.

The two-time Emmy nominated actress, producer, Ford aficionado and booked-and-busy model accomplice is revving up for the busiest run of a nonetheless rising profession. On the heels of a meaty function reverse Oscar winner Julianne Moore within the Apple TV+ film Echo Valley, Sweeney has two movies in theaters on back-to-back weekends in August: Tony Tost’s Americana adopted every week later by Ron Howard’s interval thriller Eden reverse Jude Law, Ana de Armas, Vanessa Kirby and Daniel Brühl.

September delivers an anticipated Toronto International Film Festival world premiere for an enormous swing as a queer boxer in David Michod’s biopic Christy, which she additionally produced, adopted by Paul Feig’s psychological thriller The Housemaid reverse Amanda Seyfried. Early footage of the latter movie electrified CinemaCon audiences when it debuted in Las Vegas in April. Oh, and the ultimate season of Euphoria, the present that made Sweeney a star, is on the horizon for early 2026.

Who might have guessed {that a} seemingly innocent denim marketing campaign would pressure a footnote on what might have been a wonderful few months due to the way it stirred up a shock tradition struggle that stretched from TikTok to the White House, with everybody from Lizzo to Donald Trump weighing in with an opinion. But that’s what occurred after American Eagle dropped its “Sydney Has Great Jeans” marketing campaign July 23. It was designed as an formidable partnership that included print advertisements, 3D billboards (together with one on the Sphere in Las Vegas), Snapchat lens know-how that allowed customers to work together with a digital Sweeney, and a restricted run of the “Sydney Jean” with one hundred pc of the web proceeds donated to a nonprofit of the star’s alternative.

Within days, a handful of TikTok customers took offense to a marketing campaign clip that options Sweeney saying (with distinctive inflection), “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality and even eye color. My jeans are blue.” The customers claimed it promoted eugenics or was a type of Nazi propaganda as a result of Sweeney is white, blond-haired and blue-eyed. While numerous customers dismissed the theories as nonsense, the canine pile had begun inflicting the new takes to go viral. Mainstream media shops picked up on the swirl and the protection helped unfold the controversy far and extensive, from from late evening to the White House. President Donald Trump clocked in after The Guardian reported that Sweeney registered as a Republican in Florida previous to the 2024 election.

“Sydney Sweeney, a registered Republican, has the ‘HOTTEST’ ad out there. It’s for American Eagle, and the jeans are ‘flying off the shelves.’ Go get ‘em Sydney!” Trump posted on Truth Social. “The tide has seriously turned — Being WOKE is for losers, being Republican is what you want to be.” His put up got here scorching on the heels of American Eagle defending its marketing campaign whereas pushing again on the narrative that there was every other message to the pun. “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans is and always was about the jeans,” the model shared on Instagram on Aug. 1.

Sweeney stayed silent. She nonetheless hasn’t mentioned a phrase in regards to the marketing campaign or its backlash — permitting American Eagle’s assertion to face by itself because the model reiterated that it was only a slogan about denims and nothing extra — however she did return to Instagram on Wednesday to advertise Americana with a carousel of creative behind-the-scenes pictures for her 25.3 million followers. “A few years ago I filmed this little movie with some friends and now you get to meet Penny Jo,” posted Sweeney, seen in lots of the pictures that additionally function Paul Walter Hauser and pop star turned actress Halsey. It’s the one latest promotion for the movie that Sweeney has finished apart from hitting the purple carpet for a premiere at L.A. venue Desert 5 Spot on Aug. 3. But that evening, she solely posed for photographs earlier than rapidly ducking inside with out talking to reporters.

It begs a query: What ought to Sweeney do now?

Not a lot says Nathan Miller, CEO and founding father of full-service strategic and disaster communications agency Miller Ink, which represents Fortune 500 firms and celebrities. “American Eagle played it reasonably well,” he defined, including that the model’s response displays the present tradition. “The same brand five years ago would’ve apologized profusely and tried to move past it quickly. Instead, they stuck to their guns and stood by the campaign. It was irreverent enough without being offensive. What was great about it for Sweeney is that while it may have had everyone talking, she wasn’t. Everyone was speaking about her, and she doesn’t have to do anything.”

But with a busy fall up forward, she certainly should communicate in some unspecified time in the future about her new movies even when the primary time she does discipline questions from the press is throughout a TIFF press convention. Asked how she ought to reply to the reveal about her voting file as a Republican, Miller mentioned, once more, she doesn’t want to have interaction. “If it is authentic to her and she wants to be public about it, great, but she should not feel compelled to do so just because someone dug up her party registration. It’s totally appropriate for her to say, ‘I don’t discuss my politics, that’s personal. I’m only here to talk about my movie.’ And she doesn’t lose. That’s the safest strategy,” he famous, including that on the flip aspect it’s attainable as we speak to construct a model as a political movie star as there have been loads of examples on the left. Reaching throughout the aisle as we speak solely helps to widen one’s attraction, Miller mentioned.

Lucy Robertson, head of brand name advertising and marketing at Buttermilk, an company that focuses on creator advertising and marketing, mentioned the American Eagle marketing campaign felt like a “misstep” for Sweeney as a result of somewhat than leveraging her as a artistic accomplice who helped form the narrative. “It uses her as a convenient ‘hook’ to hang the campaign on, in this case, with a tone-deaf ‘good genes’ message that quietly reinforces Eurocentric beauty ideals like white skin, blonde hair, blue eyes.”

Robertson mentioned that “real influence” in as we speak’s market comes from being “embedded in the creative ecosystem for the long-term” somewhat than simply doing one-off endorsement offers. Sweeney has an extended historical past of brand name offers after having partnered with Laneige, Miu Miu, Armani Beauty, Kérastase, Heydude, Dr. Squatch and Baskin-Robbins.

“Zendaya’s partnership with On, for example, sets the benchmark. In that 14-month collaboration — set to be the first chapter of a multi-year partnership — she hasn’t just starred in ads — she’s co-designed the Cloudzone Moon sneaker, helped craft the visual story in the evocative ‘Be Every You’ campaign, and shaped how her identity and movement translate into both product and storytelling,” Robertson defined of Sweeney’s Euphoria co-star. “That level of integration deepens cultural currency where we’ve seen Sydney front multiple brand campaigns in a short space of time, the result can feel more transactional than transformative.”

A well-placed authorized supply acquainted with negotiating A-list model offers says it could be too quickly to inform whether or not the social media swirl will have an effect on Sweeney’s future partnerships and appearing gigs. Companies would possibly choose to not work together with her in the event that they consider shoppers have Sweeney fatigue or if her publicity might tarnish their picture. (Amid the American Eagle backlash, Baskin-Robbins disabled feedback on its TikTok movies that includes Sweeney.) The knowledgeable notes their recommendation to purchasers varies based mostly on star wattage and that there’s a science to measuring movie star. At a sure degree of fame, too many product endorsements might uninteresting one’s A-list picture, the supply added, whereas others flip to worldwide markets to maintain money move coming in whereas avoiding being “everywhere” on their residence turf. Meanwhile, model offers have gotten a necessity for middle-of-the-road actors who’re feeling the squeeze of studio consolidation with fewer accessible gigs.

Matt Herbert, Chief Commercial Officer of brand name monitoring platform Tracksuit, tells The Hollywood Reporter that the response to AE’s marketing campaign “doesn’t need to necessarily define AE, but it is about how they react from here on.” He cites Pepsi’s controversial 2017 advert with Kendall Jenner that some referred to as tone-deaf for utilizing strikingly related themes to Black Lives Matter protests. (The firm later pulled the business on-line.)

Tracksuit additionally discovered that model consciousness for one more considered one of Sweeney’s model partnerships for Dr. Squatch noticed that firm boosted by three proportion factors from August 2024 to July 2025. (Recall that the boys’s cleaning soap model offered bars made together with her precise bathwater as a result of in style demand.) The firm additionally notes that “trendy” is a standard theme related to Laneige, Dr. Squatch and Miu Miu amongst survey respondents already acquainted with all three manufacturers. As for AE’s backside line, the corporate’s subsequent earnings report is Sept. 4, which might supply perception to how a lot of an influence, optimistic or adverse, the controversy had on gross sales.

Herbert notes that AE was “facing pretty big challenges over the past 18 months,” with model consciousness down by 6 proportion factors from January 2024 to June 2025; and consideration, desire and utilization declined by 5 proportion factors. … any movie star [endorsement or] model activation is an try and drive relevance, which we all know from all of our monitoring information.” 

In the case of AE, “the news is so fresh, the conversation is so fresh, and we’ll be keeping an eye [on the outcome of the campaign in] the coming months,” says Herbert. That might imply much more eyes on Sweeney and her upcoming tasks, which in Hollywood is at all times a superb factor.