America’s bittersweetheart Sydney Sweeney found herself under fire once again this week following reports that the 27-year-old actress is a registered Republican.
This comes after the Euphoria star featured in a highly controversial denim campaign for American Eagle, where she explains the facts of genetics while zipping up her jeans. Looking into the camera, Sweeney tells the viewer: “My jeans are blue.” Text on the American Eagle ad then remarks, “Sydney Sweeney has good jeans.”
The advert landed Sweeney in a heated debate about eugenics, with NPR dubbing it “the ad that launched a thousand critiques.” American Eagle have insisted it has nothing to do with eugenics and everything to do with denim.
Once Sweeney’s registered Republican status was reported, President Donald Trump got involved. “Sydney Sweeney, a registered Republican, has the HOTTEST ad out there,” he wrote in a Truth Social post on Monday. “Go get 'em Sydney!”
Speaking to reporters, he added: “You'd be surprised at how many people are Republicans. That's what I wouldn't have known, but I'm glad you told me that. If Sydney Sweeney is a registered Republican, I think her ad is fantastic.”
Whenever Sweeney is in the firing line, political debate isn’t far behind, with this controversy merely the latest development in the strange Sydney Sweeney political tug of war.
In the past two years, Sweeney has become ubiquitous. Her breakout performances in HBO juggernauts Euphoria and The White Lotus catapulted her to fame, earning her Emmy nominations. She went on to star in a slew of blockbusters, including Anyone But You opposite Glen Powell, which became America’s top-grossing R-rated comedy since 2015. Most recently, she starred in the 2025 Apple TV series Echo Valley opposite Julianne Moore.
But despite rarely talking on topics that come within a whisker of controversy, Sweeney’s image had become incredibly politicised long before the American Eagle advert.
Her appearance on Saturday Night Live in 2024 sparked debate purely because Sweeney made jokes about her own breasts, playing up to her stereotype in a Hooters-themed skit and joking that they’re her “backup” career.
Following the SNL appearance, Right-wing commentator Amy Hamm wrote an article for the National Post that declared Sweeney’s boobs the “double-D harbingers of the death of woke”. Hamm outlined how Sweeney’s breasts “[bulging] from her cups” were proof that we’re no longer going to be pressured into “pretending everyone is beautiful”. Instead, she eludes, we’re finally allowed to get publicly horny over the people who “actually are”.
Meanwhile, The Spectator published a similar article, entitled “Sydney Sweeney and the return of real body positivity”. “For anyone under the age of 25, they’ve likely never seen [a person like Sweeney] in their lifetime,” columnist Bridget Phetasy wrote, “as the giggling blonde with an amazing rack has been stamped out of existence, a creature shamed to the brink of extinction”.
The same sentiment has cropped up following the American Eagle backlash, with Caroline Downey declaring in The Telegraph: “The Left wants everything to be ugly. That’s why they hate Sydney Sweeney.”
While the Right have latched onto the idea that Sweeney could be the key to all of their hopes and dreams, the liberal Left, who love Sweeney for her roles in progressive queer teen drama Euphoria and wealth satire The White Lotus, are predictably aghast. Especially now it’s being reported that Sweeney is a Republican.
But Sweeney has let down the Left before. The actress was lambasted by Euphoria fans in 2023 after she attended a birthday party for her mother where guests were pictured in Make America Great Again-styled caps.
The Right were thrilled. This, combined with her “All-American” looks, made her a pretty little pin-up for white, Right-wing Americans. And while Sweeney did hit out at “assumptions” that were made about her political stance after the pictures received a backlash, she stayed conspicuously clear of disclosing her own politics.
“It’s absolutely a tactic,” says celebrity PR expert Mark Borkowski, “because as soon as you disclose that in the age of culture wars, you are cannon fodder.”
Borkowski and Gamble both compare this apolitical side of Sweeney to Taylor Swift, who famously took a long time to disclose her political stance around the 2016 election, despite incessant pleas from her fans to denounce Donald Trump. At the time, PRs and critics claimed it was due to Swift wanting to capitalise on her fandom being split between both camps, and not wanting to lose half her audience.
Eventually, in a post to Instagram, Swift admitted how she had been “reluctant” to publicly voice her political opinions in the past, “but due to several events in my life and in the world in the past two years, I feel very differently about that now.” She went on to reveal that she was voting for a Democrat, and encouraged her fans to educate themselves and “make your vote count.” PR wise, Swift’s image didn’t take much of a hit: she’s now more famous than ever.
Sweeney shot to fame in the aftermath of Euphoria’s second season, released in early 2022. And as with every woman who shoots to stardom, there is a mass of grasping hands ready to bring her crashing back down to earth. “Fame brings all the naysayers out,” says Borkowski, “and the way she’s gone about it has pissed off a lot of people. It’s old-fashioned because she’s using her body for publicity, when [we thought] that had died off.”
Borkowski foresees more of this political drama in Sweeney’s future, unless she finds a way to “get off the hamster wheel,” while still maintaining fame. But Sweeney stepped off the hamster wheel recently, during a breakup from her fiancé and a relatively quiet period career-wise, only to return to more politics.
And so the storm continues.
