Sydney Sweeney has admitted she had “no idea what she was signing up for” now that she’s reached a level of fame where she seemingly creates a new headline every day. Sweeney’s comments come amid a campaign of engineered outrage about her American Eagle “Great Jeans” campaign.
In late July, American Eagle debuted a new advertisement campaign with actress Sydney Sweeney titled “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans.” While the ad was likely conceived as being a cheeky reference to her famously endowed chest, a small section of easily outraged social media accounts began proclaiming the ads were promoting white supremancy.
The right side of American politics seized at the opportunity to amplify this minority’s gripes and have fully politicized the issue, with the likes of the official White House Twitter account, Texas Senator Ted Cruz and Donald Trump publicly commenting on Sweeney.
Speaking to The Times ahead of the release of her new films Americana and Eden later this month, Sweeney — whom the writer described as being quite cold and distant (“She sat with her legs folded, fidgeting with little boxes of make-up and often talking to her publicists on the other side of the room. She pulled as far back from me as she could”) — admitted that she had no idea the level of fame she was signing up for.
Sydney Sweeney says 18-year-old her had “no idea what she was signing up for”
“’Privacy [is] huge. You don’t realize how much that means until you lose it. I see all the time, ‘Oh, they sold themselves, they knew what they were signing up for’. But 18-year-old me had no idea what she was signing up for,’” she told The Times.
“When it came to photographers, she found it “crazy” that they were allowed to take photos of her at home. When it came to headlines, ‘none of it’s real’. And when it came to making friends, ‘I’ve always been guarded’, she said. ‘Definitely more so now. You let few people in who you trust.’ In fact, she exhibited such discomfort about being there for the 50 minutes — in order to promote a new movie as well as a number of brands — that it verged on annoyance.”
Sweeney’s next film, Americana, hits theaters on Friday, August 15, and will be followed by the Ron Howard-directed Eden, which co-stars Ana de Armas and Vanessa Kirby and releases the following week on August 22.
