“I’m just a 28-year-old woman who’s trying to figure it out, and I’m still learning and I’m going to make mistakes and I’m going to grow. And I think that it’s important to be able to do that without having to say every single thing all the time.”
So spoke Sydney Sweeney in her now infamously publicized interview with GQ Magazine. The Euphoria star sat down with GQ’s Features Director Kat Stoeffel in September 2025 for an interview, and the interview and a partial transcript were released on November 4, 2025. The interview covered a myriad of topics in Sweeney’s life, slightly touching on her American Eagle jeans advertisements that were released over the summer. Following the ads, the internet immediately split into two sides, one claiming that Sydney Sweeney was promoting racism and white supremacy in the ads, and the other claiming that nothing was wrong with the ads. With the follow-up release of the GQ interview, netizens once again took sides, with one side claiming that Sweeney should have apologized for the ad during the interview, and the other claiming that Sweeney is ushering in a new era of standing up for her beliefs.
Within the past two weeks I have been bombarded by YouTube videos praising Sweeney’s interview conduct, and by Substack posts and notes criticizing her response to Stoeffel’s question and statement.
Stoeffel: “Is there something that you want to say about the ad itself? The criticism of the content was basically that, maybe specifically in this political climate, white people shouldn’t joke about genetic superiority.”
Sweeney: “I think that when I have an issue that I want to speak about, people will hear.”
This interview, and the resulting internet discourse, begs the question, is Sydney Sweeney actually supporting racism, or does modern journalism just suck?
I don’t remember talking to anyone in reality about the American Eagle ad when it came out, and I have not heard anyone speaking about the GQ interview in real life. I learned about it all through social media, and that is the only place I have heard it talked about. Ever on my path to unbiased journalism and truth, I decided to listen to the interview myself and find the magical moment when Sweeney puts Stoeffel back in her place, or doubles down on her supposedly racist values.
I found neither. Instead, I learned about some of Sweeney’s early life and the inspiration behind her new movie Christy, and the actual messaging behind the jeans ad. By the end, I realized that the entire interview was a massive waste of time for both her and GQ.
I’m not a fan of mainstream media news sources, and doing a deeper dive into Sweeney’s controversy just confirmed what I’ve suspected for a while: mainstream media would rather continue to divide the American people instead of supporting nonpartisan issues, in this case raising awareness for victims of domestic violence.
The American Eagle “Sydney Jeans” are embroidered with a butterfly to represent raising domestic violence awareness, and 100% of the proceeds from the jeans will go to the Crisis Text Line. Let’s stop for a moment and ask ourselves, why is this aspect of the jeans ad and Sweeney’s interview not being talked about?
I think Stoeffel asking Sweeney if she had anything to say about the content of the ad was a lazy question. The logical conclusion of the question is the creation of more division between American citizens. How is that not a lean toward yellow journalism? Why not ask about the actual motivation behind the ad, and why supporting the Crisis Text Line is something that Sweeney is promoting?
I did get the feeling that Stoeffel was dancing around the American Eagle ad for the majority of the interview, and if discussing it was that important to her, she should have led off with that. Sweeney just ended up confirming what we have known about her for a long time: she is a private person.
To close, I have two takeaways. First, we need to stop looking to celebrities to confirm our beliefs and make us feel good about ourselves. Celebrities are not normal people. The parts of their lives that we see are the ones that they choose to share, and the ones that the media highlights. There are probably much-beloved celebrities who say one thing, and do another. This leads into my second takeaway.
Instead of getting swept up in either “how much can I hate Sydney Sweeney” or “how much can I support Sydney Sweeney,” let’s take a moment to look at what the marketing we’re shown is actually supporting, and if it’s something to support or criticize. I love jeans, and am usually an Old Navy high-waisted wide-leg type of girl. Honestly, I’d probably wear the “Sydney Jeans.” They’re cute, and I know that the money is going to a worthy cause. It took me three minutes of research to figure that out. How hard is it for our trained, paid, mainstream journalists to do the same?