Sydney Sweeney is everywhere.
She’s smiling while holding up a face cream in an ad on the subway and pops up when customers are placing orders at Baskin Robbins. She’s taking awkward selfies with the latest Samsung flip phone or trying to convince you that pink fuzzy loafers are cool. She sells her bath water, and most recently, she’s in an advertisement that’s been making news for touting her great genes and jeans on a billboard in Times Square.
The latter arrived a week ago in the form of an American Eagle campaign for jeans that makes a pun on the notion that Ms. Sweeney won the genetic lottery. The ad, which quickly took off online, set off controversy when some social media users felt it veered uncomfortably close to promotion of eugenics and the glorification of whiteness. It has also been decried for its sexually suggestive nature and for catering to the “male gaze.” It’s unclear how much input, if any, Ms. Sweeney had on the end result.
That hasn’t stopped social media users from commenting on the ad — and Ms. Sweeney’s involvement — online. Senator Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, accused left-leaning audiences of being “against beautiful women,” and Doja Cat, the rapper, posted a video on TikTok parodying Ms. Sweeney’s speech.
Ms. Sweeney and American Eagle did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Outside of the brouhaha this ad has stirred up, Ms. Sweeney is best known for her roles as the emotionally vulnerable Cassie in “Euphoria” and the condescending Olivia in “The White Lotus.” She has also become one of the most in-demand faces for fashion, beauty and lifestyle brands. She’s an ambassador for half a dozen labels: Miu Miu, Armani Beauty, the “antioxidant infused” water brand Bai, the Korean skin care label Laneige, the hair care brand Kérastase and the loafer brand HeyDude.
Why does an actress who has two Emmy Award nominations and has been featured in a number of films and TV shows — including the hit rom-com “Anyone But You,” which brought in over $200 million worldwide — need to lend her face to so many brands?
“If I just acted, I wouldn’t be able to afford my life in L.A.,” Ms. Sweeney told The Hollywood Reporter in 2022. “I take deals because I have to. They don’t pay actors like they used to, and with streamers, you no longer get residuals.”
The issue of actors’ compensation came into focus during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike, which was intended partly to pressure studios to increase compensation for actors in films and TV shows on streaming platforms. According to 2023 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median wage for an actor in the United States was $20.50 per hour. Ms. Sweeney is certainly making more than that, but, she told The Hollywood Reporter, paying her lawyer, agents, business manager and publicist comes at a cost that is “more than my mortgage.”
“It seems like she’s not ashamed or embarrassed by promoting all of these different projects,” said Priya Rao, the executive editor of The Business of Beauty at The Business of Fashion. “Historically, celebrities were taught it was tacky to do too much, to be everywhere all at once.”
But in the attention economy, younger stars are capitalizing on their 15 minutes of fame before the trend cycle moves on to something or someone else, Ms. Rao added.
Ms. Sweeney also seems to embody a malleable quality. “She’s able to be in Armani Beauty and be aspirational there,” Ms. Rao said. “She’s able to be friendly and a girl next door with Laneige. And then here, with American Eagle, she’s able to kind of be both sexy and relatable, because American Eagle is a regular all-American Gen Z-loved brand.”
For the body care label Dr. Squatch, the fact that Ms. Sweeney had worked with a number of other brands was not a deterrent.
“Sydney brings a really strong perspective to all of the brand relationships she has, and she actually vets them a lot,” said John Ludeke, Dr. Squatch’s senior vice president of global marketing.
Mr. Ludeke said Ms. Sweeney had been “very involved” in establishing the creative concepts for her campaigns to ensure they would resonate with the brand’s audience while feeling unique to her. He confirmed that Ms. Sweeney is no longer actively working with Dr. Squatch.
But consumers like Olivia Stent, 25, a paralegal based in Chicago, may have seen enough. She expected that actors from “Euphoria” would become brand names, but she said Ms. Sweeney had “marketed herself so much.”
Companies, however, are seeing results in their bottom lines. American Eagle’s stock rallied by 10 percent in the days after the advertisement starring Ms. Sweeney was introduced. In a recent earnings call, Andrew Rees, the C.E.O. of Crocs, Inc., the parent company of HeyDude, noted that working with the actress on efforts to reach the brand’s female Gen Z consumer base had been “performing really well.”
The controversy may also work in American Eagle’s favor, which had struggled to generate demand for its assortments, Ms. Rao said, as it could “get them into that cultural conversation.”
Despite the volume of Ms. Sweeney’s deals, Ms. Rao added, it seems the actress is still being strategic. Laneige is a top-performing skin care brand for Amorepacific Group, and Dr. Squatch was acquired by Unilever for $1.5 billion in June.
“At what point are you the face of too many things?” Ms Rao asked. “I don’t think we’ve reached that point with her, clearly — but I mean, there will eventually be a point of overexposure.”
Yola Mzizi is a reporter for the Styles section and a member of the 2025-2026 Times Fellowship class, a program for journalists early in their careers.
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