Sydney Sweeney Is Ready to Talk About Her American Eagle Ads
Sydney Sweeney is finally ready to talk about those American Eagle ads. Well, kind of. After dodging questions from reporters over the past couple of months, the actress addressed the controversial campaign with GQ for her “Men of the Year” cover story, and somehow, she did not have much to say.
To quickly recap: Sweeney found herself in the middle of a culture war over the summer after starring in a series of ads titled “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans.” The thrust of the videos was that jeans and genes are homophones, so when the actress talks about having “great jeans,” she could be referring to her looks or her pants. People on TikTok accused her of promoting eugenics; some folks called the campaign a conservative dog whistle; and President Donald Trump said it was the “HOTTEST ad out there.”
So, what did Sweeney think of all that?
“I did a jean ad,” she told GQ, “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.”
Right, right, right. It’s nice to know that Sweeney’s enduring love for denim got her through that difficult time. What did she think of the president weighing in?
“It was surreal,” Sweeney said, before adding that she was filming the third season of Euphoria when she became the world’s top trending topic, so her phone was away and she “didn’t really see a lot of it.”
What finally got Sweeney talking was, interestingly, a question about American Eagle’s stock price shooting up in the wake of the scandal. “I was aware of the numbers as it was going,” Sweeney said. “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.”
Okay, so Sweeney might not have much to say about the optics of a blonde-haired, blue-eyed woman being the face of a campaign about “good jeans/genes,” but don’t get her started about the company’s stock-market performance. Sounds like she’s given this a lot of thought.
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