American fashion retailer American Eagle has issued a public statement defending its brand ambassador, actress Sydney Sweeney, after an advertising campaign featuring the Euphoria star faced criticism online for allegedly promoting racially charged undertones.
The campaign, titled “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans,” showcased the 27-year-old actress modelling items from American Eagle’s fall collection.
However, the slogan drew backlash from some quarters on social media, where critics interpreted the phrase as a veiled reference to “great genes,” implying a celebration of whiteness and inherited traits.
A report by US publication Salon argued that the campaign’s language echoed phrases that have “historically been used to celebrate whiteness, thinness, and attractiveness,” labelling the brand’s messaging as a “tone-deaf marketing move.”
In response to the growing controversy, American Eagle broke its silence on Friday and defended the campaign’s intent in a statement posted to its official Instagram account.
“‘Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans’ is and always was about the jeans. Her jeans. Her story,” the brand said.
“We’ll continue to celebrate how everyone wears their AE jeans with confidence, their way. Great jeans look good on everyone.”
One of the campaign’s videos, which appears to have sparked much of the controversy, features Sweeney lying on a bed while zipping up a pair of jeans. In a voice-over, she says: “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality, and even eye color. My jeans are blue.” A narrator then adds: “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans.”
The ad was intended to be a playful pun, according to the company. However, online reaction was less forgiving. Some users accused the campaign of invoking eugenics-era language, with one viral post stating, “Sydney Sweeney and American Eagle promoting eugenics and pushing the Aryan race Nazi propaganda was not in my 2025 bingo card.”
For context, eugenics is a discredited ideology that advocates selective breeding to improve human genetic traits, and was notoriously adopted by the Nazi regime to justify white supremacist policies. The National Institute of Health (NIH) defines it as the “use of selective breeding to improve the human race.”
Sweeney has not publicly responded to the controversy, but American Eagle’s statement signals the company’s intent to stand by the actress and continue promoting diversity and self-expression through its campaigns.
