Sydney Sweeney’s Reaction to American Eagle Ad Backlash Goes Viral: ‘This Is Insane’

The internet has thoughts about the way Sydney Sweeney publicly responded to the widespread backlash to her American Eagle campaign.

“I did a jean ad. I mean, the reaction definitely was a surprise, but I love jeans. All I wear are jeans,” Sweeney, 28, told GQ for its latest cover story. “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.”

The Christy actress fronted American Eagle’s denim collection earlier in August with an ad campaign titled “Sydney Sweeney Knows Good Jeans.” A handful of social media fans thought the advertisement, using jeans as a play on the word genes, promoted the controversial-yet-discredited theory of eugenics.

“I wasn’t thinking of it like that, of any of it,” she told GQ of the viral attention. “I kind of just put my phone away. I was filming every day. I’m filming Euphoria, so I’m working 16-hour days and I don’t really bring my phone on set, so I work and then I go home and I go to sleep. So I didn’t really see a lot of it.”

She continued, “I think that when I have an issue that I want to speak about, people will hear.”

The comments, however, soon sparked a back-and-forth debate about Sweeney’s true intentions.

“Probably the most successful marketing campaign in the modern era,” one social media user wrote via X, with another added, “She’s the best! Loved the campaign. Brilliant marketing by AE. Crybabies gonna cry.”

A third fan stressed that Sweeney “needs to be protected at all costs.”

Others, however, thought that Sweeney’s GQ explanation appeared tone-deaf.

“I can’t tell if she really just clocks in and out to pick up a check when it comes to work that’s not meaningful to her or not,” an X user tweeted. “With the amount of care she puts into her own projects, I would have a hard time believing that she wouldn’t even consider the optics of that commercial as a whole.”

A fifth individual wrote, “Wish she had been more aware of what would happen but in any other time in history this ad would’ve been uncontroversial. Not her fault her stardom is peaking under [President Donald Trump’s administration].”

Others claimed that Sweeney’s comments “somehow made this whole thing worse.”

“Sydney Sweeney already perfected that, ‘Oh, I was unaware of my actions’ usual non-accountability,” a sixth X user said, with others claiming that it was all a marketing ploy to get consumers “fired up and talking about the brand.”

“This is insane to me,” an additional X user said. “All you had to do was laugh it off as stupid and say ‘Of course I don’t subscribe to genetic superiority of any kind.’ [The GQ reporter] was giving Sydney Sweeney an easy out and she just didn’t take it. That’s wild.”

Sweeney had previously remained quiet about the AE campaign, though the brand defended its intentions earlier this fall.

“‘Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans’ is and always was about the jeans. Her jeans. Her story,” an August statement from AE read. “We’ll continue to celebrate how everyone wears their AE jeans with confidence, their way. Great jeans look good on everyone.”

Since then, Sweeney has even refused to mention the denim drama while on her Christy press tour.

“I am there to support my movie and the people involved in making it, and I’m not there to talk about jeans,” she told Vanity Fair in September about the film’s Toronto International Film Festival premiere. “The movie’s about Christy [Martin], and that’s what I’ll be there to talk about.”