Lizzo has weighed in on Sydney Sweeney’s now-infamous American Eagle ad campaign.
The Euphoria star's latest American Eagle campaign ignited a firestorm of backlash that sparked accusations of eugenics and racial undertones.
The controversy began with a now-deleted promotional video released by the brand on July 23, where the 27-year-old modeled denim looks while narrating: “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality, and even eye color. My jeans are blue.”
The spot concluded with the line: “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans" - a slogan which is repeated on several other American Eagle posts across their social media platforms.
What may have seemed like clever wordplay between “genes” and “jeans” quickly spiraled into accusations of coded messaging, especially given Sweeney’s white skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes.
Critics argued the ad echoed “pseudoscientific language of racial superiority” and drew uncomfortable parallels with eugenics.
“When those traits are consistently uplifted as genetic excellence, we know where this leads," one TikToker said.
Others called the campaign “Nazi propaganda,” while Columbia University professor Sayantani DasGupta said she plans to use the ad as a classroom case study in her narrative medicine course.
The reaction online was immediate and polarizing. While some users flooded American Eagle’s social media with calls to boycott the brand, others dismissed the uproar as performative outrage.
One TikTok user quipped: “Y’all are mad at Sydney Sweeney because she’s white, she’s blonde, she’s blue-eyed and she looks good. I am DEI’d out.”
Fashion critic Rachel Tashjian also wrote in The Washington Post article that the ad’s message was “simply bizarre” and questioned whether it was attempting to make a statement about inherited style or aesthetic destiny.
Despite the outcry, American Eagle doubled down on the campaign. On August 1, the brand posted on Instagram: “‘Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans’ is and always was about the jeans. Her jeans. Her story. We’ll continue to celebrate how everyone wears their AE jeans with confidence, their way. Great jeans look good on everyone.”
The brand’s refusal to backtrack appears to have paid off, at least financially. According to Vanity Fair, AE’s stock surged 10% following the campaign’s release, adding over $200 million in market value.
Still, the cultural debate raged on, drawing in celebrities and politicians.
On Thursday (July 31), Lizzo posted a seemingly AI-generated parody of the ad on Instagram, in which she can be seen sporting a similar denim outfit to Sweeney’s and captioning it with the line: “If the Democrats won the election.”
In a nod to the Sweeney's controversial pun in the original ad, Lizzo wrote in the caption: “My jeans are black…” - a tongue-in-cheek twist that reframed the conversation around race and representation.
Doja Cat also joined in, uploading a TikTok where she mimicked Sweeney’s narration using an exaggerated Southern accent.
On the political side, Vice President JD Vance mocked Democrats’ response to the campaign on the Ruthless podcast. “You have, like, a normal all-American beautiful girl doing like a normal jeans ad… and they have managed to so unhinge themselves over this thing,” he said. “My political advice to the Democrats is continue to tell everybody who thinks Sydney Sweeney is attractive is a Nazi.”
Megyn Kelly echoed that sentiment on X, writing: “I love how the leftist meltdown over the Sydney Sweeney ad has only resulted in a beautiful white blonde girl with blue eyes getting 1000x the exposure for her ‘good genes.’”
White House communications director Steven Cheung chimed in as well, claiming, “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 bulls***.”
Still, as CNN producer Alejandra Jaramillo noted, no Democratic Party leaders have formally weighed in.
As for the White Lotus star, she has remained silent since the backlash began.