Sydney Sweeney has had a terrible 12 months. This time last year, she was being widely praised and hyped as the next big thing and a great new producer. Then her dumb American Eagle ad “good jeans” (a pun on “genes”) campaign hit last summer, and that was the beginning of the end. People found out that she’s been a registered Republican in Florida since June, 2024. Suddenly, Sweeney leaned into the MAGA Princess/eugenics advocate brand for months. By the end of 2025, her career seemingly in real danger, she finally tried to walk back the pro-eugenics ad campaign and all of the undercover MAGA sh-t. Now Sydney covers the latest issue of Cosmopolitan and this cover is TERRIBLE. I cannot believe Cosmo’s team used this image, and I can’t believe Sydney’s people signed off on this. But it brings up something I’ve been wondering about for the past year: does Sydney have a good team around her? It feels like she’s gotten some horrible PR/branding advice in the past year, my god. Anyway, Sydney is currently promoting her lingerie line, SYRN, and she’s still talking out of both sides of her MAGA mouth. Some highlights from Cosmo:

She’s communicating via lingerie: “This can be how I communicate to my audience. I want to show women that we can take back our power and fully free ourselves. I want SYRN to stand for the power of choice.”

On the American Eagle eugenics controversy: “Those aren’t my values, but I feel like I’ve never needed to correct people who don’t know who I am.”

On the Internet backlash and assumptions she only appeals to men: People will say, “Oh, she’s doing this for guys” or “Oh, she’s a guy’s girl.” But I’m like, “What is more girl’s girl than owning your body and doing it for yourself?” I want it to be their choice—the choice of the wearer—whether this is for them, for somebody else, or for a camera lens.

She swears she hasn’t had work done: “I see photos comparing me to my child self all the time. I’m like, “I was 14 in that image. I’m 28 now. Of course I look different—I grew up.” I feel bad when I see accounts that are like, “Oh, she’s done X and Y to her face.” It’s not true. I’ve never gotten any work done. I wish there was something in place on social media to restrict things that aren’t true, because there are girls who will look at me and say, “I need to do these things to feel pretty.” It makes me sad.

On public perception and being called MAGA Barbie: “I’ve never been here to talk about politics. I’ve always been here to make art, so this is just not a conversation I want to be at the forefront of. And I think because of that, people want to take it even further and use me as their own pawn. But it’s somebody else assigning something to me, and I can’t control that. I haven’t figured [out how to correct it]. I’m not a hateful person. If I say, “That’s not true,” they’ll come at me like, “You’re just saying that to look better.” There’s no winning. There’s never any winning. I just have to continue being who I am, because I know who I am. I can’t make everyone love me. I know what I stand for.

Her values: “I’ve always led with love. I’ve always believed that love is love in every single form. You should be kind to whoever you meet. I remember on the set of Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood, I watched Brad Pitt sit and hang out with the transpo department. I absolutely loved that, and I was like, “Yeah, you have to respect everybody in your life.”

Whether she’ll ever talk about her politics: “No. I’m not a political person. I’m in the arts. I’m not here to speak on politics. That’s not an area I’ve ever even imagined getting into. It’s not why I became who I am. I became an actor because I like to tell stories, but I don’t believe in hate in any form. I believe we should all love each other and have respect and understanding for one another.

She’s afraid of being alone: “I struggle with being alone. My mom, my friends are all like, “Sydney, you need to learn to love to be alone.” I have a huge fear of being alone for the rest of my life, so I look for someone who will be my best friend, who I can hang out with, talk to all the time, dream up things with, and work with.

[From Cosmopolitan]

I’m going to be bold and say that the reason why Sydney hasn’t come out and said “come on, guys, I’m not MAGA” is because she is, in fact, very MAGA. Think about how a normal, anti-Trump person would feel about worldwide accusations that you’re playing footsie with thugs and fascists? Every single one of us would immediately say “what the f–k, of course those are not my politics, of course I feel sick about what that man and his cult are doing to this country.” Sydney can’t say that because she simply doesn’t feel that way. It’s grotesque when you think about it.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, cover courtesy of Cosmopolitan via Instagram.