The scent of scandal. It only missed this particular aroma, so popular with spirits, so that the actress of the “Euphoria” and “White Lotus” series goes from the status of actress recognized to that of a planetary star. Sydney Sweeney, 27, already had all the attributes that Hollywood loves so much. Blonde hair like wheat, two large blue balls above a pretty centered nose and snapshot. A pinch of Bardot, a monroe zest. This clever mixture which, in the West, moults a starlet in a sensual icon. But the competition is tough; You still have to stand out. And when the recognition of the talent or the trophies are uncertain, nothing like a controversy in good and due to steal the light. A simple advertising spot managed, on July 23, to supplant all its cinema roles.
The object of the noise? The actress appears, lascivious, exposed navel and seductive gaze, to convince the consumer to buy clothes from the American Eagle brand. No need to do more so that the Internet ignites. In less than twenty-four hours the fate of the claw was sealed by the media court. First deemed sexist, advertising was quickly compared to that of Brooke Shields for Calvin Klein, in 1980. From the age of 15, the actress provoked the screen: “Do you want to know what is between me and my Calvin?” Nothing. More than forty years later, rebelote, the same marketing technique is used.
But the real detonator of the case is elsewhere. In words more than in images. Faced with the objective, Sydney Sweeney explains: “The genes are transmitted from parents to their children and often determine features such as the shade of the hair, the personality and even the color of the eyes. My jeans are blue. The final slogan, carried by a male voiceover, gives the fatal blow: “Sydney Sweeney has superb jeans. “The play on words between the terms” genes “and” jeans “(to the identical pronunciation in English) stated by a white woman, blonde with blue eyes … for part of the public, that does not pass.
Some Internet users immediately denounced the character according to them eugenist, racist and discriminatory tirade. At the same time, the media made them their fat, suspecting the intention of the brand, in decline for several years. At the center of what Americans call a “shitstorm” (literally a “shit storm”) to speak of a surge of hateful comments on the Internet, the dress chain founded in 1977 refused to apologize. Instead, a press release released on Instagram, trying to explain that this slogan “is and will remain about jeans”: “We will continue to celebrate the way everyone to wear their Jean American Eagle. The perdition brand has found the light. As the adage says: praise or blame, it is always advertising.
At the end of 2025, she swapped the jeans of scandal to put on the “cleaning lady” blouse, in the adaptation of the world bestseller of Freida McFadden.
© American Eagle
With four films on the poster and an adaptation of “the cleaning lady” in preparation, Sweeney chooses to remain silent. Because his silence is golden
Collateral shame or chaos actress, Sydney Sweeney did not escape the hurricane. Ten days after the launch of the campaign, “The Guardian” discussed his name in the list of voters of the Republicans in Florida. The documents, accessible, were able to be consulted by the British daily, which especially did not omit to specify the date of the registration: on June 14, 2024, two weeks after the sentence of Donald Trump. In campaign for his re-election at the White House, he was found guilty of falsification of accounting documents to hide large checks for the Stormy Daniels porn actress. Like a second room in the machine, this new data has confirmed the detractors of the advertising, convinced to see the brand of the American far right, with Sweeney as one of its figureheads. His presence in Venice last June, at the sumptuous wedding of Jeff Bezos, surely did not help. However, going down the cutters on a yacht with great bosses to the villains Maga is only one – tiny – facing the Sweeney medal.
As a child, she grew up without television or internet, on the shore of a lake in the north of Idaho, with her little brother, Trent, and two loving parents. Born in a world at the antipodes of show business and a thousand kilometers from social networks which today carry it in the pinnacle or the pillory. Being an actress is the dream of her life. At 12, full of the unshakable insurance of children her age, she makes her parents sit on the council of the show, to explain them in five stages the course of the rest of her life, guided by a clear and indisputable objective: to make cinema. Casting, agent, filming, advertisements … Nothing has been left to chance in what looks like the business plan of an expanding start-up. Steven and Lisa Sweeney can boast of having been confident. Or unconscious. By putting aside their existence for the future of the girl, they left the family farm where their ancestors had been installed for five generations, heading for California. This will result in a mountain of debts and then a divorce which, even today, the rising star feels guilty.
Now she understood that silence is gold. At the clamor of the scandal, she opposes an unshakable silence. She did not need to defend herself since others took care of it. Even if his improvised lawyers were not the most indicated in terms of credibility. Thus, as a tireless slayer of “wokism”, J. D. Vance, the vice-president of the United States, mocked the Democrats by advising them to “continue to say that those who find Sydney Sweeney attractive are Nazis”.
Unaccustomed to being only a simple spectator of the stirring, Donald Trump came to add his grain of salt: neither one nor two, on August 4, he was spanning with delight on his social social account: “Sydney Sweeney, a declared republican, in the most” hot “ad. It is for American Eagle, and the jeans fly away like hotcakes. Come on, Sydney! »At Wall Street, we understood the value of such a message. The course of the company American Eagle, listed on the stock market since 1994, literally jumped almost 24 % ten minutes after the presidential publication. A welcome but still insufficient increase for the company, which saw its market capitalization melted by around 50 % in one year. From there to think that such a campaign can be orchestrated on purpose, in an America fractured by ideological battles, there is only one step.
Lakes from Idaho, where she grew up, at the Venice lagoon on June 28 for the marriage of Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez: a dazzling ascent.
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© SGP/Shutterstock
From there to think that such a campaign can be orchestrated by the brand in decline, there is only one step …
More than 4,000 kilometers from the Financial District in Manhattan and its political calculations, on the red carpet of a large cinema in Los Angeles, Sydney Sweeney finally came out of the shadows. For her first appearance since the start of the case, she has not put on jeans but released her Hollywood smile. In full promotion of the police thriller “Americana”, of Tony Tost, in which she has the first role, there was no question of taking a sick leave … In less time that it does not take it to write it, the actress has become the instrument of a struggle which, perhaps, goes beyond. But she also offered herself a highway for glory. To play the dumb, ignoring the ones, the actress is strategic. On the poster for four films in 2025, three others announced for the following year then two scheduled in 2027, she was also chosen to interpret the heroine of the adaptation of the world bestseller “The cleaning lady”. This book, signed Freida McFadden, sold in France in more than 630,000 copies in 2024. The record of the year and the guarantee for Sweeney to become one of the most requested stars of its generation. No controversy, even if they were involved in Trump, can represent a threat to his future in Hollywood. On the contrary. In this case of jeans and suspicion of eugenics, his name will be retained. Another, on the other hand, will be quickly forgotten. American how already?
