The CEO of American Eagle Outfitters has spoken for the first time about the controversial Sydney Sweeney ads after the brand was hit with backlash over the campaign.
The ads, featuring theWhite Lotus star in the brand’s denim, were widely criticized on the left, with people comparing the phrase to the racist language of eugenicists, due to wordplay on “jeans” and “genes.”
Fox News jumped on the criticism and ran repeated segments over how liberals were “melting down” over the ads. President Donald Trump even defended Sweeney, writing on Truth Social: “Sydney Sweeney, a registered Republican, has the ‘HOTTEST’ ad out there.” (Public voting records revealed Sweeney is a registered voter with the Republican Party in Florida.)
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, published Monday, CEO Jay Schottenstein says he instructed executives and employees to remain calm and not comment on their July ad campaign.
“You can’t run from fear,” he said. “We stand behind what we did.”
Despite the fallout, American Eagle, which is popular with Gen Z shoppers, didn’t pull any of the contentious ads.
The 71-year-old CEO noted that the controversial campaign led to an increase in sales, attracting nearly a million new customers between July and September. The two products named after the actress — The Sweeney Cinched Waist denim jacket — sold out in a day; the Sydney jeans sold out in a week, according to the report.
The ad features petite, blonde-haired and blue-eyed Sweeney, 28, suggestively staring into the camera while discussing her genes – or rather – jeans.
In the ad, she says: “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality and even eye color.”
“My jeans are blue,” she adds, before a narrator concludes: “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans.”
Schottenstein, an Orthodox Jew, was left confused by the backlash, namely over those who suggested it promoted the Nazi-embraced theory of eugenics that selective reproduction would improve the genetic quality of the human population.
“I’m very conscious of that term,” he told the Journal, noting that if he and his team had felt the campaign would be offensive, “we never would’ve done it.”
While the brand defended Sweeney, she has not commented on the controversy.
During the premiere of her new film, Christy, at the Toronto Film Festival earlier this month, she went as far as to declare that she would only talk about the movie.
American Eagle will continue with Sweeney as their brand ambassador for the rest of the year.
