Sydney Sweeney broke her vow of silence on the controversy regarding her viral American Eagle good jeans ad. Remarking that the response was both “surreal” and a “surprise.” ” I did a jean ad. I mean, the reaction definitely was a surprise, but I love jeans . I just wear jeans.” She told GQ for its Men of the Year edition, which was released on Tuesday, “All I wear are jeans. I’m literally in jeans and a T-shirt every day of my life.”
“I’ll vent to my girlfriends. But other than that, no ,” Sweeney continued on the earlier temptation to make a public statement.
“I know who I am. I know what I value. I know that I’m a kind person. I know that I love a lot, and I know that I’m just excited to see what happens next. And so I don’t really let other people define who I am … I think that when I have an issue that I want to speak about, people will hear.”
The actress stated she was too consumed with filming “Euphoria” Season 3 to truly understand how viral the campaign got at the time, after acknowledging that it was “surreal” to witness President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance defend her over the contentious wordplay in the advertisement.
“I wasn’t thinking of it like that, of any of it. I kind of just put my phone away. I was filming every day. I’m filming ‘Euphoria,’ so I’m working 16-hour days and I don’t really bring my phone on set, so I work and then I go home and I go to sleep. So I didn’t really see a lot of it,” Sweeney added. “I think that if somebody is closed off because of something they read online to a powerful story like ‘Christy,’ then I hope that something else can open their eyes to being open to art and being open to learning, and I’m not going to be affected by that.”
The celebrity also discussed the business of the apparel company, mentioning that AE’s stock price increased by 38% after the advertising campaign. She stated,
“I was aware of the numbers as it was going. So when I saw all the headlines of in-store visits were down a certain percentage, none of it was true. It was all made up, but nobody could say anything because [the company was] in their quiet period. So it was all just a lot of talk. And because I knew at the end of the day what that ad was for, and it was great jeans, it didn’t affect me one way or the other.”
