American Eagle is defending its new ad campaign featuring Sydney Sweeney after drawing outrage online and even garnering a response from the White House.
In a statement shared Friday on its Instagram account, the clothing retailer attempted to clarify the intention of the ads.
“‘Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans’ is and always was about the jeans. Her jeans. Her story,” the statement read. “We’ll continue to celebrate how everyone wears their AE jeans with confidence, their way. Great jeans look good on everyone.”
Unveiled last week, the American Eagle ads find Sweeney ― whose acting credits include “Euphoria” and “Anyone But You” ― donning a variety of denim ensembles alongside a tagline featuring wordplay on “jeans” and “genes.”
The campaign is believed to have been intended as a tribute to Brooke Shields’ 1980 Calvin Klein ad, which was also controversial for its time. However, many viewers interpreted the ad’s use of the “jeans” double entendre as an allusion to eugenics, with some even likening it to “white supremacy” and “Nazi propaganda.”
The response to the ad was largely divided along political lines, with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and former Fox News host Megyn Kelly among the conservative personalities who defended it. White House Communications Director Steven Cheung, meanwhile, said the controversy was an example of “cancel culture run amok,” and “why Americans voted the way they did in 2024.”
Watch one of Sydney Sweeney’s American Eagle ads below.
Appearing on the “Ruthless” podcast Friday, Vice President JD Vance echoed some of Cheung’s sentiments.
“The lesson [Democrats] have apparently taken is we’re going to attack people as Nazis for thinking Sydney Sweeney is beautiful. Great strategy, guys,” he said. “That’s how you’re going to win the midterms.”
Whether American Eagle’s statement will be enough to quell the criticism remains to be seen. By Friday afternoon, responses to the company’s Instagram post appeared similarly divided.
“Ignore the negativity. Brilliant ad,” one person wrote in the comments, while another said they “didn’t think the response could be even worse than the ad but it somehow was.”