PR experts fear that Sydney Sweeney risks career setbacks if she continues to be sexualised on screen.
According to experts speaking to Fox News, the MAGA-coded star is at a crossroads in her career, which has been textured by massive box-office successes, a few flops, and a fair amount of controversies.
“‘Euphoria’ clearly helped establish Sydney Sweeney as a fearless performer, physically and emotionally, and that’s part of why she broke through. The risk is that when the public conversation focuses more on the sexualized aspects of the role than on the performance, the same work that made her seem daring can start to narrow the brand,” said crisis and reputation management expert Dave Quast.
“Sexuality on screen is not inherently unserious,” Quast continued. “The problem is when it becomes the dominant shorthand for the actor.”
“For Sweeney, the challenge is not that she has played sexualized roles. The challenge is making sure those roles continue to read as character choices, not as the entire brand proposition,” he added of Sweeney, whose third-season role in Euphoria has caused waves.
In Sam Levinson’s controversial HBO drama, Sweeney’s character Cassie turned to creating OnlyFans content in order to pay for a lavish wedding to Jacob Elordi’s Nate Jacobs.
Experts told Fox News that Sweeney has a knack for generating media attention and public buzz. “The price comes if the attention starts to feel one-dimensional,” said Kelcey Kintner, senior vice president at crisis PR company Red Banyan. “If every headline is about her body, the showy scenes, or how provocative the role is, that can make it harder for the public to actually focus on and see her talent. I do think she is trying to make that effort to find balance in her career and grow as an actress.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to Sweeney’s representative for comment.
The views from experts seem no different from generational debates over Hollywood women and their bodies. Sweeney has become the Gen-Z face of this debate, exacerbated by her own dubious political leanings.
Sweeney, 28, has become a polarizing cultural fixture. Recognized for her blond locks and oddly frequent conversations about her body, Sweeney became a right-wing darling after a 2025 American Eagle ad that flaunted her “great genes.” The video campaign sparked seemingly furious debate about its undertones of eugenics and white supremacy. While many condemned the ad’s implied ideology, MAGA stalwarts quickly turned blue-eyed Sweeney into their poster child.
The actress said she was “surprised” by the reaction to the ad. “I did it 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 told People in December.
Sweeney has been sexualised since the beginning of her career– something the actress has both capitalized on and thoughtfully reflected upon.
“When a guy has a sex scene or shows his body, he still wins awards and gets praise. But the moment a girl does it, it’s completely different,” she told the Independent in 2022.
“I had boobs before other girls, and I felt ostracized for it,” she said in a GQ profile that same year. Sweeney was 24 at the time. “I was embarrassed and I never wanted to change in the locker room. I think that I put on this weird persona other people had of me because of my body. So I did play every sport and I studied really hard and I did everything that people wouldn’t think I would do, to show them that my body doesn’t define who I am.”
The plotline for her Euphoria character has eerily reflected her own public persona, Sweeney explained. “You have a character that goes through the scrutiny of being a sexualised person at school, and then an audience that does the same thing,” Sweeney said to GQ.
Cassie’s character arc and Sweeney’s public perception have continued down this path during Season 3. Many have condemned the explicit portrayal of Cassie’s foray into sex work, which involved a scene in which Sweeney is dressed like a baby, donning a pacifier, and spreading her legs.
Experts like Kintner argued to Fox that Sweeney will have to make strategic moves to create “a long-term, sustainable career in Hollywood.”
“Sexualization can create instant attention, and in today’s media environment, attention is money. That is just the reality of the world we live in with technology. But it is also a risky shortcut,” she purported.
In the wake of the American Eagle debacle, Sweeney told People that she will be “intentional” about showing the world who she really is, going forward.
“I think this next year I want to be really intentional with showing people who I am and what I want, cause so many people can just get it wrong,”
