About a month ago, GQ Features Director Katherine Stoeffel lobbed a couple of softball questions at Sydney Sweeney about the actor’s now-infamous American Eagle “great jeans” ad. “Were you surprised by the reaction?” she asked. Sweeney paused, looked simultaneously confused, bored, and annoyed—insofar as she ever shows any emotion—and replied, “I did a jean ad.”
The campaign in question, which came out in July, was interpreted by segments of the online chattering classes as eugenics-coded: “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans,” a deep male voiceover decreed, as she rolled around onscreen looking like Sydney Sweeney. This interpretation was picked up by people who think racism is good and people who think racism is bad, which means this conversation has had real internet staying power.
Which is why, nearly four months later, Stoeffel spent a few minutes on the “controversy” during a sitdown promoting GQ’s Men of the Year issue. After her initial question, Stoeffel asked whether or not Sweeney wanted to address “the criticism of the content, which was basically that maybe specifically in this political climate, white people shouldn’t joke about genetic superiority?”
“I think that when I have an issue that I want to speak about, people will hear it,” Sweeney responded—AKA uh, no, she did not want to address the concept of white supremacy.
To me, this interview was eye-roll-inducing; these were easy questions that Sweeney’s almost-certainly-well-compensated PR team should have prepared her better for. But to right-wingers, it was an affront to their MAGA-coded queen, and they pounced on Stoeffel for asking normal questions; she locked her Instagram and Twitter accounts shortly after, one assumes due to disgusting or violent messages.
But something must have changed for Sweeney in the past month, because in a new exclusive People interview, she sounds, if not apologetic, somewhat contrite: She did the campaign “because I love the jeans and love the brand. I don’t support the views some people chose to connect to the campaign. Many have assigned motives and labels to me that just aren’t true.”
She went on: “Anyone who knows me knows that I’m always trying to bring people together. I’m against hate and divisiveness. In the past my stance has been to never respond to negative or positive press but recently I have come to realize that my silence regarding this issue has only widened the divide, not closed it.”
The PR conspiracy side of my brain is wondering if keeping the American Eagle controversy going was an attempt to draw focus away from Sweeney’s Oscar-bait movie tanking at the box office. Now that the film’s been out for a while, it’s OK to release the statement that’s going to (God willing) put this whole story to bed? Or maybe Amanda Seyfried told her she better say something because she was not going to put up with The Housemaid also tanking.
Or does ole Syd actually feel bad that people really think she condones white supremacist views?
The only thing that is for sure is that I can’t take one more video of her monotone vocal fry, so I sincerely hope she doesn’t have to talk about this in public ever again.
- Golden Globes noms are out! I’m THRILLED for Eva Victor. [Los Angeles Times]
- Lena Dunham went to an NFL game (with Taylor Swift). [Page Six]
- Someone check in on Mario… [The Shade Room]
- The Daily Mail is accusing Ana de Armas of “pulling a Cara Delevingne” for not talking to an F1 commentator. Standoffish queens! [Daily Mail]
- If celebs weren’t at F1 this weekend, they were probably at Art Basel—or at least the only one that matters was (Rihanna). [E!]
