The fierce reaction to Sydney Sweeney’s latest racy advertisement says more about her critics than it does about the ad, according to a USA Today columnist who argues the backlash is rooted in the actress’s political registration rather than the content of the spot itself.
Ingrid Jacques, writing in a Sept. 16 op-ed, laid out what she sees as a pattern: every time Sweeney appears in a provocative campaign, a segment of the public treats it as a political provocation. The newest flashpoint is a commercial for the sports betting company Novig, in which the 29-year-old Euphoria star appears nude with her body covered only by sporting equipment.
The columnist acknowledged the ad’s deliberate provocation, writing that it is “fun” and that the company’s marketing team “clearly knows its audience – mostly men.” She noted the posts have racked up millions of likes and views, suggesting the strategy is working. But for Jacques, the more revealing story is not the ad — it is the intensity of the response to it.
“It’s the overreaction to anything Sweeney touches – and the fact that it has everything to do with her being a registered Republican,” Jacques wrote.
From ‘Good Jeans’ to Novig
This is not the first time Sweeney has found herself at the center of a cultural fight. Jacques recounted the controversy that followed Sweeney’s American Eagle jeans campaign last year, when critics — including some prominent progressives — decided the ad’s slogan about “good jeans” amounted to a coded appeal, interpreting the blonde, blue-eyed actress’s appearance as a kind of dog whistle. President Trump weighed in with encouragement on social media at the time, which further cemented Sweeney as a target in some corners.
After that, Sweeney’s voter registration as a Republican became public, and Jacques contends that disclosure became the convenient justification for continued attacks — an excuse rather than a cause.
The current round of criticism has featured female athletes describing the Novig spot as degrading. Jacques characterized those complaints as prudish, noting that she does not recall a comparable annual outcry when Sports Illustrated releases its long-running swimsuit edition, a decades-old institution that features models, actresses and female athletes in various states of undress.
She also pointed out that Sweeney is not an athlete herself — she is simply “advertising a product to people who like sports – nothing more.”
“Let’s be honest: It’s Sweeney these folks are disgruntled with, not her partnership with Novig,” Jacques wrote.
A Star Who Avoids Politics
What makes the political framing particularly notable, according to the column, is how little Sweeney herself has done to invite it. Jacques noted that Sweeney is private about her personal politics and has consistently declined to engage when asked, unlike many of her liberal colleagues in Hollywood who are outspoken in their opposition to Trump.
Sweeney has said she does not want to be a political figure and does not wish to be used as a pawn for anyone’s ideology. Jacques argued that is precisely what her critics are attempting to do anyway.
The columnist closed by asking the public to stop dragging Sweeney into political fights, writing that the actress is simply trying to enjoy her twenties — years that, in Jacques’s words, go by all too quickly — and urging readers not to stand in her way.
The op-ed reflects a broader argument now common in conservative media: that cultural criticism of celebrities is often a proxy for political hostility, and that figures who decline to take sides get assigned positions regardless. Whether that framing holds in Sweeney’s case, the Novig ad has undeniably become the latest battleground in a recurring argument over how much politics the public reads into a pair of jeans — or, in this case, a set of sporting equipment.
Source: www.breitbart.com — https://www.breitbart.com/sports/2026/09/16/usa-today-people-are-mad-sydney-sweeney-because-shes-registered-republican/