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Sydney Sweeney made her initial public appearance after the controversy surrounding her recent American Eagle campaign.
On Sunday, August 3, she walked the red carpet in Los Angeles for a screening of her latest film, Americana. The 27-year-old actress beamed widely for the cameras, posing for individual shots as well as group photographs with her co-stars.
Dressed elegantly to mark the film's upcoming August 15 premiere, Sweeney exuded confidence in a champagne-colored gown featuring a corset and a tulle skirt, accented with a bold lemon-colored headband.
This public event occurred just two days after American Eagle publicly responded to the backlash it faced for including Sweeney in a denim campaign that promoted her “great jeans,” which cleverly played on the word “genes.”
The campaign, showcasing the Anyone But You actress in various seductive poses wearing the brand's denim, was met with criticism for allegedly referencing eugenics—a discredited belief tied to racial superiority that aimed to enhance human genetics and has links to white supremacist ideologies.
In the brand's Instagram response to the backlash on Friday, August 1, they clarified the intended meaning behind the campaign's tagline. "Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans” has always focused on the jeans themselves,” the statement declared. “Her jeans. Her narrative. We will keep celebrating how each person wears their AE jeans with pride, in their distinctive manner. Great jeans suit everyone.”
The diverse American Eagle campaign includes multiple visuals and clips, featuring a segment of Sweeney mimicking a 1980s Calvin Klein advertisement with Brooke Shields, showing her pulling her pants up while reclining. Sweeney's version conveyed the message, “the secret of life lies in the genetic code,” alluding to Shields’ original line, “Genes are fundamental in determining the characteristics of an individual and passing on these characteristics to succeeding generations.”
Another advertisement within the campaign captured Sweeney discussing the shade of her pants in relation to her eye color, where she said to the camera, “Genes are inherited from parents to children, often influencing features such as hair color, personality, and even eye color. My jeans are blue.”
After the campaign's launch, social media users expressed their opinions, with one comment on X stating, “Sydney Sweeney and American Eagle endorsing eugenics and promoting Aryan race Nazi propaganda was not on my 2025 bingo card.”
While Sweeney has yet to publicly respond to the criticism, her silence on social media was momentarily interrupted on the same day American Eagle issued its statement. The actress returned to Instagram to share a Story that featured a bouquet of pink roses accompanied by a white heart sticker.
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