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.

Will she pivot?

An 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.