Donald Trump has weighed in on the controversial new American Eagle advert starring Sydney Sweeney.
The Anyone But You star recently featured in a number of the clothing brand’s promotional videos for their jeans.
In the advert, Sweeney is dressed head-to-toe in matching denim, as the slogan 'Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans' appears on screen.
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"I’m not here to tell you to buy American Eagle jeans," she says. "And I definitely won’t say they’re the most comfortable jeans I’ve ever worn, or that they make your butt look amazing. Why would I need to do that?"
Meanwhile, in another clip, Sweeney added: “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair colour, personality and even eye colour. My jeans are blue.”
The play on words, by changing 'genes' to 'jeans', has sparked some backlash, however.
Critics online accused the ad of using language rooted in eugenics, which, according to National Human Genome Research Institute, is a false belief that humanity can be improved by selective breeding.
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The company, however, responded to the backlash in a statement, saying that 'Sydney Sweeney has great jeans is and always was about the jeans'.
“Her jeans. Her story,” they added. “We’ll continue to celebrate how everyone wears their AE jeans with confidence, their way. Great jeans look good on everyone.”
Now, Trump has given his opinion on the situation.
According to The Guardian, Sweeney has been registered as a Republican voter in Florida since June 2024. Sweeney hasn't made it known publicly which political party she aligns herself with, nor shown any public endorsement or support for Trump.
And while he was speaking to reporters on the runway in Allentown, Pennsylvania, he was asked about this, to which he said: “She’s a registered Republican? Now I love her ad.”
“Is that right? Is Sydney Sweeney...,” the US president continued. “You’d be surprised how many people are Republicans. That’s one I wouldn’t have known, but I’m glad you told me that.
"If Sydney Sweeney is a registered Republican, I think her ad is fantastic."
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Trump’s Communications Director Steven Cheung later said that the negative reaction to the advert was 'cancel culture run amok', adding: “This warped, moronic and dense liberal thinking is a big reason why Americans voted the way they did in 2024. They’re tired of this bulls***.”
It comes after Shalini Shankar, an anthropology professor at Northwestern University, criticised American Eagle for 'aligning themselves with a white nationalist, MAGA-friendly identity'.
“I think that this is them trying to rebrand themselves for the present moment, and language is very deliberately used here,” she told CNN.
“People don’t invoke genetics casually. It’s just, it’s very, very easy to sell denim without ever referencing it.”
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Whereas Alyssa Vingan, a fashion writer and former editor of Nylon and Fashionista, thought the campaign was just an example of 'lazy writing'.
“I don’t think it was funny or clever,” she said. “And I do think obviously it’s cheap humor to have somebody like Sydney Sweeney, who’s blonde with large breasts and a small waist, say she has good genes because she’s hot.
“I don’t think that it was much deeper than that. Unfortunately due to the climate we’re in and things going on in America at large, it does read very, very, very poorly and insensitively.”
LADbible Group has contacted Sydney Sweeney's representatives for comment.
Topics: Sydney Sweeney, Donald Trump, Celebrity, US News
Anish Vij