The internet may not always be a euphoric place for Sydney Sweeney, but the 27-year-old star knows that keeping up on the online chatter is sometimes necessary.
“I think it’s important to have a finger on the pulse of what people are saying, because everything is a conversation with the audience,” Sweeney told The Wall Street Journal about navigating internet feedback in an interview published Wednesday, Aug. 20.
In June, the “Anyone But You” actress faced backlash for her partnership with Dr. Squatch. At the time, Sweeney released a limited-edition line of bar soaps made from her bathwater.
“It was mainly the girls making comments about it, which I thought was really interesting,” she explained to the publication. “They all loved the idea of Jacob Elordi’s bathwater.”
The “Euphoria” actor, 28, starred in “Saltburn” opposite Barry Keoghan in 2023. In one scene, the Irish actor’s character Oliver drinks bathwater after Elordi’s Felix had pleasured himself in the tub.
Fans ended up creating a “Bathwater Candle” inspired by the moment.
Sweeney’s bathwater, however, didn’t garner the same kind of response.
“I think it’s more fun to see everyone else talk about it,” she told E! News at the time, noting that the product came to be because “I pitched it.”
Last month, Sweeney found herself enthralled in another controversial moment following an American Eagle partnership.
The “Echo Valley” vet’s “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans” campaign sparked a debate about race and beauty standards.
Critics focused on the use of the word “genes” instead of “jeans” when discussing the blonde-haired, blue-eyed star.
Many social media users felt the ad promoted eugenics.
“Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality and even eye color,” Sweeney said in the American Eagle video. “My jeans are blue.”
Marcus Collins, an assistant professor of marketing at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, revealed how the controversy should have been handled.
“You can either say this was ignorance, or this was laziness, or say that this is intentional. Either one of the three aren’t good,” he told the Associated Press.
“I love how the leftist meltdown over the Sydney Sweeney ad has only resulted in a beautiful white blonde girl with blue eyes getting 1000x the exposure for her ‘good genes,’” Megyn Kelly wrote on X of the controversy.
American Eagle quickly defended the company’s campaign.
“‘Sydney Sweeney has great jeans’ is and always was about the jeans,” the clothing brand wrote in an Instagram statement on Aug. 1. “Her jeans. Her story. We’ll continue to celebrate how everyone wears their AE jeans with confidence, their way. Great jeans look good on everyone.”
While the young starlet has yet to address the drama, Sweeney did talk about her partnership with the brand.
“I am a sweats girl,” she confessed to People in July. “But yesterday I wore a pair of American Eagle jeans on a plane, and I was like, ‘Oh, this is great. They’re so comfy.’”
Finding out she was the new face of American Eagle’s latest denim campaign was a surreal moment for Sweeney.
“I was freaking out because I was like, ‘This is perfect,’ and I was so excited,” Sweeney gushed, adding that she’s been a lifelong fan of their jeans. “When they were like, ‘We want it to be a denim campaign,’ I was through the roof. I was like, ‘This is it. This is Syd. I will be able to bring this to life. You have no idea.’”
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
