Sydney Sweeney has finally returned to social media after severe backlash for promotingan American Eagle ad. Taking to her Instagram handle, the star used her comeback post on August 13 to promote her upcoming film Americana, which is set to hit theaters on August 15.
The first photo showed the two-time Emmy nominee gazing ahead from the driver's seat of a car.
Other snaps featured her grinning in a trailer, posing for a mirror selfie on a digital camera while wearing a curly blonde wig and strumming a guitar in her bedroom.
Captioning the clicks, she wrote in the caption: “ A few years ago I filmed this little movie with some friends and now you get to meet penny jo.”
American Eagle's ad, launched in July under the tagline “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans,” was meant to be a playful nod to fashion. But some viewers took issue with the ad’s wording, calling it racially coded and accusing it of echoing eugenics-inspired rhetoric.
In one video clip, Sweeney buttoned her jeans while narrating: “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring…” and concluded with: “My genes are blue.” In another, she commented: “My body’s composition is determined by my genes.”
Critics labelled the campaign a “racialised dog whistle,” while some went as far as to call it “Nazi propaganda.” However, many came to Sydney’s defence, calling the outrage exaggerated.
“Comparing this to Nazi propaganda is just ridiculous,” one fan posted on X. “It’s an ad about denim, not DNA supremacy.”
American Eagle also addressed the backlash, releasing a statement defending the actress: “‘Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans’ is and always was about the jeans. Her jeans. Her story. We’ll continue to celebrate how everyone wears their AE jeans with confidence, their way.”
Despite the brand’s attempt to clarify, Sydney’s appearance at the karaoke bar drew mixed reactions, especially given that one of her companions, Hunter Schafer, is a transgender woman. Some critics accused Sydney of trying to “lean on her white girlies with good reputations” to repair her public image.