Sydney Sweeney revealed why she hasn’t spoken out since she became MAGA’s favorite actress.
In a new interview with Cosmopolitan, the Euphoria star was asked how she felt about being nicknamed “MAGA Barbie” by her adoring right-wing fans.
“I’ve never been here to talk about politics,” she said. “I’ve always been here to make art, so this is just not a conversation I want to be at the forefront of. And I think because of that, people want to take it even further and use me as their own pawn. But it’s somebody else assigning something to me, and I can’t control that.”
Sweeney became the right’s darling after her jeans campaign for American Eagle was accused of promoting neo-Nazi ideals with its double entendre emphasis on her blond hair and blue-eyed “genes.”
Fox News rushed to Sweeney’s defense with hours of coverage, harping on the discourse until Donald Trump, JD Vance, Ted Cruz, and more weighed in, despite no Democratic lawmakers engaging in the social media conversation.
When Sweeney’s voting records revealed she was a registered Republican, Trump called the jeans spot “the HOTTEST out there” in a Truth Social post, heaping praise on the star, who appeared largely apathetic to the ad’s perceived implications.
A month later, Sweeney finally addressed the matter more directly, telling People, “Many have assigned motives and labels to me that just aren’t true,” and “I’m against hate and divisiveness.”
She said in the new interview on Thursday that she “hasn’t figured out” how to respond to the controversy over the ads or her personal politics. “I’m not a hateful person. If I say, ‘That’s not true,’ they’ll come at me like, ‘You’re just saying that to look better.’ There’s no winning. There’s never any winning.”
“I just have to continue being who I am, because I know who I am. I can’t make everyone love me. I know what I stand for.” She again declined to address the specifics of the way her persona has been co-opted by MAGA.
“I’m not a political person. I’m in the arts,” she stressed. “I’m not here to speak on politics. That’s not an area I’ve ever even imagined getting into. It’s not why I became who I am. I became an actor because I like to tell stories, but I don’t believe in hate in any form. I believe we should all love each other and have respect and understanding for one another.”
Sweeney insisted she was powerless against internet narratives, saying she believes people “underestimate my strengths, but they overestimate how much control I have over a narrative.”
