I’ll admit it – when the internet first lost its mind over Sydney Sweeney’s so-called ‘white supremacist’ American Eagle advert over the summer, I thought the whole thing absurd. The sort of confected outrage cooked up by hysterical TikTok pundits who haven’t (unlike me) actually worked in advertising, and therefore don’t know that the last thing a mainstream brand like American Eagle wants is to risk being drawn into such febrile political territory by deliberately courting the alt-right.
Still, the alt-right claimed it, and Sweeney, as did President Trump, who declared the campaign ‘the HOTTEST ad out there’. And then last week a clip from a recent interview began to circulate, in which a journalist offered Sweeney a chance to correct the record and disavow the white supremacist charge, and she just… didn’t. Many have interpreted this as concrete evidence that she is a pro-Trump MAGA type – or, at least, contemptibly doesn’t want to alienate that portion of her fanbase. Of course, there’s also the possibility that Sweeney finds the accusation of being a diehard eugenicist so insulting that she has chosen not to dignify it with a response (though, having floated that theory to friends, I can tell you it’s not a popular school of thought).
Whichever theory you think most likely, what’s indisputable is that Sweeney’s increasingly baffling PR strategy is putting her brand at risk. Because it’s not just the American Eagle controversy, is it? There’s also her attendance at the universally derided Bezos-Sánchez wedding in June, her very public new relationship with reputationally challenged music exec Scooter Braun (aka Taylor Swift’s nemesis) and her overzealous ‘quantity over quality’ approach to brand partnerships, including a line of soaps made using her bathwater that was honestly just downright weird.
Sydney Sweeney and Scooter Braun in Bryant Park in November 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Aeon/GC Images)
Having becoming a lightning rod for controversy, Sweeney’s missteps have begun to overshadow the fact that she’s a talented actor. Her performance in new movie Christy – the requisite physical transformation biopic required of actresses wanting to demonstrate serious acting chops – has been widely praised, yet it opened to mediocre numbers last week. Sweeney can generate a headline, but clearly that doesn’t necessarily translate into box office success. Where Christy was previously thought to be her attempt at entering the Oscars race, that possibility looks increasingly unlikely given the narrative around her now is not especially Academy-friendly.
One gets the sense that Sweeney has opted for the ‘never complain, never explain’ school of PR, of the sort long practiced by the likes of the royal family. There’s an advantage in refusing to feed the beast by commenting on every scandal that comes your way, and conveying that one isn’t beholden to every media critique. But Sweeney would also do well to note that even the royal family have softened that stance in recent years, having belatedly realised that sometimes your silence becomes the message. Right now, Sweeney’s silence is clearly sending the wrong one.
