Sydney Sweeney made her first public appearance following her recent American Eagle campaign controversy.
Walking the red carpet in Los Angeles on Sunday, August 3, at a screening of her new film Americana, Sweeney, 27, flashed a wide smile for the cameras, posing for solo snaps and photos with fellow cast members.
Dressed to the nines to celebrate the film’s August 15 release date, the actress oozed confidence in a corseted champagne-hued gown with a tulle skirt, completing the look with a wide lemon colored headband.
The public appearance came just two days after American Eagle publicly addressed the negative feedback it received after featuring Sweeney in a denim campaign that touted the star’s “great jeans” — a double entendre on the word “genes.”
The campaign, which depicted the Anyone But You actress posing seductively in the brand’s denim pieces, attracted criticism for seemingly alluding to eugenics, a discredited, racially biased belief that aimed to improve human genetics and was associated with white supremacy.
In the brand’s Friday, August 1, Instagram response to the criticism, it referenced the campaign’s tag line and expanded its intended meaning. “ “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans” is and always was about the jeans,” the brand’s statement read. “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.”
The multifaceted American Eagle campaign, which features multiple stills and videos, includes a clip of Sweeney recreating a 1980s Calvin Klein ad starring Brooke Shields that showed her pulling her pants up as she lay on the floor. Sweeney’s video included the message, “the secret of life lies in the genetic code,” which referenced Shields’ original Calvin Klein line, “Genes are fundamental in determining the characteristics of an individual and passing on these characteristics to succeeding generations.”
Another ad in the campaign showed Sweeney speaking about the color of her pants and its likeness to her eye color, with the actress telling the camera, “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality and even eye color. My jeans are blue.”
Social media users made their thoughts on the campaign clear after its release, with one writing via X at the time, “Sydney Sweeney and American Eagle promoting eugenics and pushing the aryan race Nazi propaganda was not in my 2025 bingo card.”
While Sweeney has not publicly addressed the backlash, a quiet presence on social media was broken on Friday, the same day American Eagle released its statement, with the actress returning to Instagram to share an Instagram Story of a bouquet of pink roses alongside a white heart sticker.
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