Did Sydney Sweeney break down in tears over the American Eagle ad controversy? Viral post debunked amid online concerns

As the internet continues to debate American Eagle's recent ad campaign featuring Sydney Sweeney, a video showing the actress breaking down in tears over the controversy has gone viral.

On Thursday, July 31, 2025, netizens, including X user @Girlpatriot1974, shared a clip of a tearful Sweeney addressing the backlash after reportedly being "bullied" over the ad. In the video, the Euphoria actress asserts, "People should be nicer on social media," adding:

"I think it's really important for people to see how words actually affect people. And I know everyone says, 'You can't read things and shouldn't read things (on social media).' But I'm a f**cking person."

Sydney Sweeney speaks out after getting bullied on social media over her American Eagle ad. pic.twitter.com/EFk2IFn4T3

— Girl patriot (@Girlpatriot1974) August 1, 2025

However, the clip is taken from Sweeney's emotional breakdown on Instagram Live back in 2021. At the time, the actress candidly spoke about harsh online commentary about her looks affecting her.

Neither Sweeney nor American Eagle has publicly responded to the development.

Netizens claim the Sydney Sweeney ad controversy has been manufactured to shift focus away from the Epstein files

Last month, American Eagle dropped their latest ad campaign featuring Sydney Sweeney and the tagline, "Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans." One of them saw the actress painting over the words "Great Genes" on a billboard to read, "Great Jeans." Another featured her buttoning up her jeans while stating

"Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality, and even eye color. My jeans are blue."

Some took offense at the wordplay, likening it to promoting eugenics. One TikTok user even claimed it was promoting "fascist propaganda," much like the Nazis.

Others (like X user @beyoncegarden) note that while the brand's original intention might not be nefarious, their decision to publish it during the current "political climate" was questionable. TikTok user @jessbritvich elaborated:

"We can't keep pretending that media and marketing exists in a vaccum. That (Sydney Sweeney) ad doesn't exist without the culture it's selling into (displaying images related to MAGA)."

Sydney Sweeney's recent American Eagle ad is being compared to n-zi propaganda.pic.twitter.com/w3w00a99mw

— No Jumper (@nojumper) July 27, 2025

Aria Halliday, an associate professor in gender and women’s studies, told the Guardian she was seeing a cultural shift in the U.S., recentering towards "whiteness" as what "America is and who Americans look like." Per Halliday, it is also reflected in fashion. She illustrated her point, citing Terry Richardson, a blacklisted photographer who has recently started to shoot for magazines again, and Dov Charney, who stepped down as CEO of American Apparel over allegations of s*xual misconduct and is now starting a new brand with heavily s*xualized marketing.

However, others argued that the backlash was just the "left" having a meltdown.

The Late Show host, Stephen Colbert, suggested internet users were "overreacting" to the Sydney Sweeney ad during Wednesday's episode of his show. Meanwhile, White House spokesman Steven Cheung, resharing an MSNBC story titled "Sydney Sweeney’s ad shows an unbridled cultural shift towards whiteness," tweeted:

"Cancel culture run amok. This warped, moronic, and dense liberal thinking is a big reason why Americans voted the way they did in 2024. They’re tired of this bullsh*t."

Jane Cunningham, co-author of Brandsplaining: Why Marketing is (Still) S*xist and How to Fix It, told The Guardian

"It all feels like it was cooked up in a conference room to provoke maximum controversy and maximum outrage, and to get maximum attention."

As the discourse continues, some netizens believe the online outrage has been overstated. Here's an X conversation between users @jeremynewberger and @AlexandreJY and the platform's AI tool Grok:

Some users claim the Sydney Sweeney ad controversy is being pushed as a tactic to shift focus away from the Epstein files. For context, the current administration is facing criticism for not releasing Jeffrey Epstein's client list. Notably, he was a convicted s*x offender who ran an elite ring that procured women and girls to be abused by his associates. Many claim that the hesitancy stemmed from wanting to protect the people, mostly the rich, named in the list.

According to the Independent, citing a study by Media Matters (a nonprofit left-leaning watchdog journalism organization), Fox News spent over eighty-five minutes (over twenty segments) discussing the Sydney Sweeney commercial but only talked about the Epstein files for three. Further, they mentioned Sweeney sixty-two times on air since Monday, as compared to fourteen times for Epstein.

Meanwhile, the network's left-leaning competitor, Newsmax, mentioned the Epstein saga four times more than the American Eagle controversy. CNN mentioned the latter commercial six times as opposed to the disgraced financier getting mentioned 638 times. Meanwhile, outlets like MSNBC have yet to mention Sydney Sweeney at all.

Per Independent, only a small fraction of those on the left have criticized the advertisement, mostly limited to social media. Meanwhile, per the outlet, right-leaning outlets (and social media accounts) have chalked up the "manufactured outrage" to Democrats and the woke left. However, no prominent party official has said anything.