The truest thing about Sydney Sweeney right now is that she has the pop culture world completely divided.

Half of her fans are obsessed with her and think she is the most amazing gift to planet Earth.

Others think that she is overhyped, overexposed, oversexualized, and too problematic.

Sydney didn’t accidentally become one of Hollywood’s most talked about actresses.

Her rise to fame has been strategic, controversial, and honestly just a tad bit uncomfortable when you look at it super closely.

This is the story of how Sydney climbed the Hollywood ladder faster than anyone expected, and the complicated truth behind her climb.

Plus my opinion on the uncomfortable truth about her overall rise to fame.

We’ll start with the question of how much Zendaya’s presence and Sydney’s willingness to film nudity sculpted her career. Sydney’s casting archetype means she’s taken on roles that allow her to maintain a vulnerable, doll-like, overly sexualized, tragic persona. Before she became a breakout star, she built an impressive résumé for herself with guest spots on shows like Grey’s Anatomy, Pretty Little Liars, and Criminal Minds. And she also had major roles in shows like Everything Sucks on Netflix, Sharp Objects on HBO, and The Handmaid’s Tale on Hulu. Obviously, her career really started picking up traction when she landed the role of Cassie Howard on Euphoria. One thing diehard fans of Sydney hate to admit is that Euphoria was so beyond successful because of Zendaya, and Sydney reaped those benefits by proxy. Some of her notoriety from the show exists because she got to share screen time with an actress who is as beloved as Zendaya.

Zendaya is a huge deal and has been for years with Golden Globe awards, BET awards, and Primetime Emmy awards under her belt. Zendaya has proven herself as a serious actress with all of her accolades, so Sydney’s star power was thoroughly amplified simply by being on the same show as someone like Zendaya. On top of that, another uncomfortable truth about her overnight rise to fame on Euphoria is the fact that tons of people instantly became obsessed with her after seeing her stripped down without any clothes on. Seeing Sydney exposed in a vulnerable state that way allowed her male fan base to start fantasizing about her in a way that simply wouldn’t have happened if she had stayed fully dressed for the entire show.

The fact that she was willing to bare all with nude scenes is a huge reason why she started attracting so many male fans who were mostly impressed by her appearance more than her actual talent. From that point forward, directors started seeing her as a bankable starlet for specific roles because Hollywood historically rewards the archetype of a vulnerable, doll-like, sexualized, tragic persona in female characters. A quick comparison to prove this is a pattern that Hollywood repeats every decade comes in the form of Megan Fox.

Megan went through a lot of the same things Sydney is currently going through when it comes to being hyper-sexualized and fawned over by a male audience. The sad reality about Megan is that being so heavily scrutinized based on her appearance for so many years starting at a young age caused her to develop body dysmorphia and self-esteem issues. She has been super open about the fact that she doesn’t love her body, she doesn’t see herself the way others do, and this has been an ongoing struggle for pretty much her entire life. She has a distorted view of her own body compared to how others perceive her, which makes a lot of sense when you consider the way she’s been judged incessantly from head to toe, every inch of her body, ever since she became famous.

Megan has done multiple interviews describing her “harrowing” misogynistic experiences starting from when she was a teenage girl in the entertainment industry. So if anyone can understand what Sydney is currently facing right now, it is Megan. This is a pattern that Hollywood repeats every decade.

And that’s one reason why part of the story behind Sydney’s rise to fame is so uncomfortable. We can agree and admit that Euphoria was the perfect breakout platform for her as an actress since it had a massive HBO budget, it had beautiful glittery aesthetics, it had social media virality potential, and just about everyone and their mom was sharing hot takes about Euphoria week by week on TikTok. It was the great unifier.

The first two seasons of Euphoria had everyone sitting at their TV screens watching the episodes as they dropped and then sharing their hot takes on social media within the hour. Sydney was part of that conversation because Cassie has been such a crucial character in the show. But the question of whether Sydney’s career would’ve blown up without Zendaya being part of the cast — and whether Sydney would’ve been as successful if she had kept her clothes on — is always going to be looming there.

Is she starting controversies on purpose?

So beyond what Euphoria did for her career, I am also questioning some of the controversial things she’s done behind the scenes that have pushed the boundaries. It’s like she’s seeing if she’ll be able to maintain support no matter what she does. Because it seems that in the past, people have been quick to forgive Sydney for different mishaps here and there, but she’s slowly starting to lose that edge where it’s been easy for people to forgive her.

Obviously, her controversies have been amplified this past year, but part of me is starting to wonder if being super controversial is just part of her overall long-term plan. As in, maybe she’s playing the long game knowing that a few negative headlines about her early on in her career might help seal her long-term future into motion because if people are willing to forgive her for different things now, then it means they’ll continue putting her on a pedestal down the line.

We’ll start with the photos that were snapped at a political-themed birthday party for one of her family members in 2023. People were photographed wearing hats that resembled MAGA hats, and it was unfortunate because things in this political atmosphere have been extremely tense the last few years. We’ve got an attack on immigrants currently happening with ICE agents tearing families apart, we’ve got the scandal of the Epstein files, we’ve got the president dismantling most DEI initiatives which were a main tool in supporting historically marginalized groups, we’ve got the president re-ordering how federal civil rights are enforced which has often been to the detriment of minorities, we’ve got the president ordering the rewriting and erasure of Black history and the history of racial oppression from federal museums, national parks, and federal lands, and we’ve got a president who’s setting the tone for mainstream acceptance of racism and white nationalism.

So it’s not worse than it sounds to be anti-MAGA at this juncture. Supporting that side means you’re cosigning bigotry. Point blank. So when Sydney was spotted at that family member’s birthday, a lot of her fans were rightfully upset.

Another scandal was the backlash she received during her press tour for the movie Anyone But You that she filmed with Glen Powell. She and Glen played into the rumors that they were having an affair while filming the movie, and it ended his long-term relationship with his girlfriend Gigi Paris. Gigi outright spoke about their breakup in an interview and made it clear that his behavior behind the scenes with Sydney was a factor in the breakup because she felt so disrespected — which is understandable.

Then she put out a bath soap collaboration with a brand called Dr. Squatch that allegedly had some of her bathwater infused into the soap blend. At the time, a lot of her female fans slammed her for setting feminism back by many years, because it was widely believed that she was catering to the patriarchy by doing the exact scandalous thing that Belle Delphine got canceled for back in like 2019. Belle was famous as a gamer girl, but when she decided to sell her bathwater online, and she ended up getting banned from Instagram permanently. Since Belle was judged and punished for doing something so similar just a few years ago, a lot of people were confused why Sydney was able to do something similar and get away with it without really any repercussions. I didn’t really personally care that much because I get that she was just trying to get her bag and earn more money with a brand collaboration. If she’s going to drain anyone’s bank account it might as well be pervy men. But the scary part is that the rise of red pill and incel culture in young men was truly put on display when Sydney started selling this soap, since her target demographic was incel men. Incel men are generally the scariest demographic of human beings on this earth because they don’t see women as human beings.

And obviously the American Eagle advertisement that claimed she had “good genes” as a play on words with the blue jeans she was wearing from the brand. A lot of people started posting hot takes about the advertisement on social media with some fans questioning if the advertisement was hinting at the idea that the genes of white people are superior. Sydney then sat down for a separate interview where she had the opportunity to shut that narrative down, but she refused to shut it down, which only made people feel more upset and angry with her.

When she went public in her relationship with Scooter Braun, that also had some fans feeling some type of way because none of us loved seeing Scooter’s drama with Taylor Swift just a few years ago when he bought Taylor’s masters without her permission. Taylor ended up having to re-record a bunch of her songs because of it. So when Sydney started dating Scooter, it made it abundantly clear that she’s not a girl’s girl, even for someone as beloved as Taylor Swift, who has the army of Swifties behind her.

There have been a few other controversies and scandals, but those are the only ones I’m going to dig into right now because this isn’t supposed to be a shit-on-Sydney-Sweeney article. I am trying to remain as objective as possible. But the question of whether she’s been willing to place herself directly into scandals early on in her career in order to see how far she can push the envelope while maintaining fan support is loud. Although it’s a very risky angle because if a person has too many controversies under their belt too early, it can actually butcher their chances of having longevity in their career.

Will she pivot?

The third uncomfortable truth about Sydney’s rise to fame right now revolves around the status of the last batch of movies she’s starred in that haven’t exactly done well in theaters in terms of box office sales and audience attendance. Four of her movies this year are classified as full-fledged box office flops starting with Echo Valley, which premiered in June 2025. The movie got extremely low streams when it premiered on Apple TV. Next up is Eden, which premiered in August 2025 and the premiere only pulled in a little more than $1 million. Americana premiered in August 2025 as well, and it only pulled in $500,000 when it premiered. And her most recent movie Christy only pulled in $1.31 million in November 2025 for its premiere.

One of the biggest arguments fans have had on social media about the Christy movie flopping is that a lot of the fans who would have gone out to see the movie felt too turned off by Sydney to actually give it a chance since the movie is about a queer female boxer escaping a DV situation. Sydney is seemingly catering to an audience that supports MAGA, white supremacy, and incel behavior.

The people who would have gone out to support this movie don’t feel that Sydney has been respectful of marginalized groups as a whole based on her unwillingness to shut down the white supremacy narrative.

If I try to put myself in Sydney’s shoes to understand why she didn’t take the opportunity to shut it down, I think she might’ve thought that it’s so evident that she’s not into white supremacy that no one should even come to that conclusion about her and it’s not even worth her breath to shut this rumor down. And although that could’ve a valid approach if she really isn’t into white supremacy, sooo many people took that American Eagle ad the wrong way that it kind of warranted at least some type of response.

I’m not saying she needed to apologize for anything because it wasn’t her job to apologize for a script she didn’t write. All she did was show up and film the commercial, so I’m not blaming her for the content. I just think there was at least something she could’ve said along the lines of “Everyone has taken this completely the wrong way. White genes being the best genes is not how it was intended to be perceived.” Or something even simpler than that.

Because I remember when Kendall Jenner got slammed for doing the Pepsi ad amid police brutality headlines every day, Kendall put out an apology statement even though it 100% wasn’t Kendall’s fault — she didn’t write that script, all she did was show up and film the advertisement. But Kendall still handled the situation with class and she regained all the support from people who were frustrated pretty much overnight.

All that being said, coming back into the third uncomfortable truth about Sydney’s rise to fame… As frustrating as it might be, actors and actresses are still somewhat performing in a real-world popularity contest in order to attract audiences to their shows and movies. If you portray yourself as a deeply unlikable person in interviews and advertisements, then it makes fans NOT want to go support you and your shows and movies. So in order to attract fans who actually want to show up and show out with support, a certain level of likability has to be displayed and expressed on a more frequent and regular basis that we haven’t fully seen from Sydney.

And it pains me to say because I really was a huge fan of Sydney before all of this stuff started unfolding. I still to this day think that she’s absolutely stunning. And no one can deny that that she’s a beautiful, gorgeous girl. I know some people complain about her acting skills saying that she’s kind of a monotone actress, but for me personally I actually love her acting style. I feel like she’s very poised, very calm, very collected, and very elegant. So I actually enjoy her acting style. I think she is talented. So I personally do want to see things turn around for her.

It’s not impossible for a woman who builds her acting career as a sex symbol to veer into the territory of being taken seriously as an actress later on in her career. And we’ve seen that with Margot Robbie for example. Margot’s roles in The Wolf of Wall Street and Suicide Squad definitely painted her as a sex symbol who was catering to the male gaze. But then she went on to star in some incredible movies that allowed the world to really take her seriously as an actress, including I, Tonya, Bombshell, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and the Barbie movie.

With I, Tonya and Barbie specifically, she made the shift to filming movies that are all about women empowerment, which is one of the smartest things an actress can do if she really wants longevity in her career because women are going to support women. We are going to show up and support women regardless of how you look. A lot of Sydney’s fan base only wants to show up to support her because they’re hoping that she’s going to take off her clothes and get naked for a scene or two. But an audience of women doesn’t care if Sydney takes off her clothes or not — we’re there to actually show up and support her for her talent. And that is the difference.

I do have high hopes for Sydney because I think she’s incredibly smart for launching her own production company called 50-50 Films. And it’s undeniable that she’s hard-working and committed to her craft. So time will tell about what’s next for her and her career. Thank you for watching.