Sydney Sweeney is Famous But She’s Not Popular, and That Matters

Well, someone’s publicist finally panicked and got to work. After stringing people along for way too long with a smarmily apolitical public stance that veered dangerously close to endorsing literal white supremacy, Sydney Sweeney released a statement to reassure her fans that she is not the KKK princess of good jeans.

In what People described as “an emotional interview”, Sweeney said, “I don’t support the views some people chose to connect to the campaign.” She added that she is someone who “leads with kindness” and that “anyone who knows me knows that I’m always trying to bring people together. I’m against hate and divisiveness.” She says that she hopes we can all move on to the new year and focus more on what unites us instead of divides us.

Okay. So this is not a great apology.

Celebrity apologies are almost always viewed as disingenuous, partly because the public always views them through the lens of profit. Are they being earnest in their penitence or are they just worried about the bottom line? Good famous people apologies are possible (Notes Apps optional), but Sweeney’s one has a lot of the markers of a bad one. It’s vague, too long, but without the necessary context, and it doesn’t seem especially authentic. Sure, it’s nice that you’re against all forms of hate, Syd, but do you want to be a bit more specific about the thing everyone has issues with? It’s okay, you can say it.

Sometimes, it is better for a celebrity to stay quiet and avoid the Streisand Effect, but when someone asks if you’re a white supremacist, you should immediately say “no”. That’s a pretty simple thing you can do, and an effective one at that. Sweeney’s failure to understand that (or her potential willingness to string along the MAGA crowd for attention) shot her in the foot. Her own voting history would always hang over any apology she gave, but it blares like a big red light over this one in its mealy-mouthed rhetoric. Who are you trying to appease, really?

This apology also feels phoney because it comes in between two big movie releases that were designed to elevate Sweeney to the A-List: her awards-baity boxing biopic Christy and the lurid thriller The Housemaid. The former crashed and burned so spectacularly at the box office that it broke records. She’s still fighting hard for that Best Actress nomination, which will be hard given that her movie wasn’t universally beloved and competition in that category is tough. Said competition also includes her co-star in The Housemaid, Amanda Seyfried, who gives an excellent performance in The Testament of Ann Lee. If I’m an AMPAS member and I’m looking at my ballot, I’m probably not inclined towards Sweeney when I could pick Seyfried, Jessie Buckley, Renate Reinsve, Rose Byrne, Cynthia Erivo, Jennifer Lawrence, Emma Stone, Chase Infiniti, Kate Hudson, and June Squibb. They’re all far more acclaimed, and many of them are just more liked than Sydney. It’s a popularity contest, after all.

And that gets to something I’ve been thinking about a lot during the Sweeney Storm of 2025. Yes, Sydney Sweeney is famous. She’s got a good team behind her making strategic choices to increase her fame and standing in the entertainment world. She’s cozying up to Jeff Bezos. She’s the star of a huge HBO show. She’s talented (sorry, but she is, watch Reality.)

But do people actually like her? Is she popular?

I don’t think she is. And that’s catching up to her in this year of genes/jeans and smug political silence.

Seriously, though, who is her fanbase? Is it her fellow young millennials who love Cassie in Euphoria and enjoy Sweeney in rom-coms? Is it the straight dudes who slobber over her in her revealing fashion while she coyly talks about loving her body? Is it the indie crowd who loved Reality but didn’t turn out for Christy? Is it the Madame Web nerds who… okay, I’ll stop there.

Sweeney’s ambition was the thing about her I was most intrigued by. She talked candidly about making certain career choices, such as signing up for the legendary Sony-Marvel bomb, because it would help her to level up in her long-term plans. Clearly, it was working. She jumped from genre to genre, director to director, to cover a wide range and get her foot in the door of box office success: Immaculate for horror vibes, Anyone But You for a rom-com boost, Eden for… well, on paper, it made sense. On paper, it also seemed like a savvy way to build up an audience eager for more. But I don’t really see it. The stans aren’t losing their minds over her like they have done for many of her Euphoria co-stars. Zendaya has unimpeachable star power and fashion savvy to die for, while Jacob Elordi has delved into character actor weirdness and won favour with some big-name auteurs. Who is in Syndey’s corner?

I know who isn’t: women. Let’s be blunt here. She is not a girl’s girl. When Sabrina Carpenter was being dinged by people for her newest album cover, I saw people claim she was an artist designed to pander to the male gaze. Putting aside how often people misuse Laura Mulvey’s film theory for a moment, that was just nonsense. But it might kind of be true for Sydney? I’m not talking about her having boob-forward fashion choices or saying that she does that for the hooting lechers. I do think she is using her sexuality in a way many younger actresses have moved away from in recent years, and that does carry a heteronormative purpose. I understood why she was silent when the MAGA crowd tried to claim her boobs were a sign that wokeness was dead or whatever, but in hindsight, was this setting that same crowd up for the good jeans?

Here’s the thing about pandering, explicitly or otherwise, to the MAGA crowd: they’re dumb and they don’t care about art. They only view pop culture as a thing to hijack and turn into a battering ram against whoever they’re mad at. They don’t circle the wagons because they’re so interested in cinema or music. They rallied around Sweeney because they thought they could make her into an anti-woke sexy lady icon to berate other women with (women including Sweeney’s Euphoria co-stars.) That didn’t mean they suddenly cared about her movies. Come on, these were not the same people who ever planned on seeing Christy, a biopic about a gay woman who was stifled by the joint powers of homophobia and domestic violence. That’s woke liberal nonsense, right? Not like the grand conservative artforms of… AI slop of Donald Trump and Morgan Wallen’s latest album? When you try to sell a namby-pamby “I’m not political but hear the dog-whistle” stance to the masses, the people who actually put their hands in their pockets to go to the cinema will blank you and your new allies won’t suddenly become fans of your work. Again, who is her audience?

There’s also a simpler answer to this all: she’s just not very interesting or charismatic. You don’t remember Sydney Sweeney interviews or share them online like you do with Zendaya ones. You don’t quote her red carpet moments or meme them like what’s happened with the Wicked duo. She’s not funny like Emma Stone or Jennifer Lawrence. She’s not naturally stylish like Hunter Schafer. She doesn’t have it. You can’t fake star quality. And it’s not necessary for every actor. We have character actors and dedicated artists who avoid the spotlight and do great work without having to be obsessed over by the masses. But Sydney really wants to be mega-famous. She wants to be the kind of star that requires a devoted audience. Jeff Bezos won’t buy all the cinema tickets for you.

(Image via IMDb.)

If The Housemaid is a hit, it won’t be because of Sweeney or the audience’s sudden adoration of her. It’s an adaptation of the biggest crime novel on BookTok. That’s where the ticket sales will come from. If any star on the poster is drawing in women who love those books, it’ll be Karen from Mean Girls. But any commercial success it gets will be accompanied by some well-placed trade headlines about how Sweeney’s back on top and wow, maybe this is a signal that something something cancel culture let’s appeal more to the right, etc. Her team have got her placed in a lot of awards season interview spots too, which might land her a Golden Globe nomination, but the Critics’ Choice Awards still blanked her. I think the Oscars will too.

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But no, I don’t think her career is over. I do think she’s fallen into a deeper hole than she expected and that all of this will cast an undeniable shadow over her future. She’s set to star in a film about Kim Novak’s romance with Sammy Davis Jr. Does she think her non-existent fanbase will want to see her in a movie about a love story stopped by racism after she took so effing long to not-say, “I think white supremacy is bad”? I think she’s savvy enough to know that going down the Gina Carano route would be a disaster, but does she have it to reroute her future into something close to what she dreams it’ll be? Does she get the Bond girl job that she is rumoured to be chasing? If I were her, I’d go back to indie films and prove myself beyond the hype. Right now, she does not have the popularity to balance out her errors. That’s not genetic.