Sydney Sweeney breaks online silence amid ‘jeans’ ad backlash. See the post
Shaking it off.
Sydney Sweeney isn’t letting a little thing like an online scandal interrupt her fun.
The actress’ first Instagram post since the Internet flipped over her American Eagle ad shows her at a beloved Key West hangout.
“Duval diaries,” says the caption along with a bunch of photos of her with some pals yukking it up at Sloppy Joe’s, which is on, yes, Duval Street.
The dive bar, whose motto is “Still the Best Party in Town,” is just about 20 miles from the waterfront retreat in Summerland Key that Sweeney snapped up last summer for $13.5M.
Bless her heart, she looked positively beaming, despite the fact that her new movie “Americana” is not exactly a hit.
In the thriller, Sweeney plays a South Dakota waitress who plots with a cowboy (”Fantastic Four’s” Paul Walter Hauser) to steal a Native American artifact called the Ghost Shirt from criminals.
Well, the flick didn’t go over so well with audiences, as per the Hollywood Reporter. “Americana” opened to an estimated $500,000 from 1,123 theaters, ranking 16th in the domestic box office.
It’s unclear if the lack of folks buying tickets had to do with Sweeney’s recent controversial AE campaign that played with the words “jeans,” as in clothing, and “genes,” as in DNA.
In one eyebrow-raising spot, Sweeney says, “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality, and even eye color.”
The laid-back post at Sloppy Joe’s garnered mixed reactions from her 25.2M followers.
Sniped one critic: “I heard your movie flopped. I guess they spent all their movie money on the good genes.”
But others were happy to see her living her life and even said they even bought up more AE jeans amid the backlash.
“Glad to see Sydney so unbothered by all the asinine hate!” wrote one supporter. “Keep doing you!”
This story was originally published August 18, 2025 at 5:21 PM.
