The truest thing about Sydney 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.

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.