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Sydney Sweeney Hits Back At Critics After Baring It All In Racy Video

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Sydney Sweeney
Photo Credit: Inside Edition/YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nn0PY818YRs

Sydney Sweeney answered the uproar over her nearly naked Novig ad without a lecture, posting old ESPN nude-athlete photos after women’s sports stars ripped the campaign.

The actress has not directly addressed the criticism aimed at the sports betting campaign, but her Instagram response did not leave much mystery. She posted images from ESPN’s “Body Issue,” the annual special edition that put male and female athletes in nude or semi-nude shoots before it ended in 2019.

The timing made the point. Sweeney had just taken heat from women in sports for appearing nude with sports equipment in the Novig campaign.

Her ESPN photo dump included Serena Williams, Ronda Rousey, Sue Bird, Megan Rapinoe and Caroline Wozniacki, along with a note that male athletes had also posed nude before.

Sweeney’s own Novig post was hardly being ignored before that apparent rebuttal. The ad, which went up on her Instagram last Wednesday, had pulled in 1.1 million likes.

The follower hit looked far less dramatic next to the size of her audience.

After the commercial arrived, Sweeney’s Instagram account first gained 50,000 followers. By Sunday, she had lost 136,848, followed by another 68,000 by Monday, according to Social Blade data.

Even with those departures, the drop amounted to less than 1 percent of Sweeney’s more than 25 million followers.

The backlash from athletes was framed less as an attack on Sweeney’s body than as a warning about the message girls might take from the ad.

Tennis player Priscilla Hon opened her Instagram criticism by separating the actress from the broader issue.

“Sydney Sweeney looks amazing, and honestly good for her. But this isn’t about her or her body,” Hon wrote.

Hon said girls are already surrounded by pressure to chase the “perfect” body and argued that sports should teach them to measure themselves differently.

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“They’re constantly being shown what the “perfect” body is supposed to look like, and sport should be one of the places that teaches them their bodies are about what they can DO, not how they look,” Hon wrote.

Australian surfer Felicity Palmateer told CNN the 42-second ad did serious damage.

“Just absolute utter disbelief, incredibly disappointing, like, how far you can put women’s sports backwards in the space of a 42-second commercial,” Palmateer said.

Palmateer called the campaign “very damaging” for young girls, female athletes and women in general.

“We want to be valued for what we can do, not what we look like,” Palmateer said.

British sprinter Amy Hunt turned her own performance into a pointed answer to the ad.

The 24-year-old, who had earlier become the first athlete to win four gold medals at a single European Championships, finished fourth in the 200m at the inaugural World Athletics Ultimate Championship and used her post-race interview to address Sweeney.

“It was incredible to be part of such an incredible race. Sydney Sweeney, this is what women in sport look like. 21.4 [seconds, the winning time of Melissa Jefferson-Wooden], muscles, hard work, sweat, blood, tears. This is a beautiful evening,” Hunt said.

Olympic swimmer Ariarne Titmus wrote on Instagram that the photos left her furious.

“I can’t describe how infuriated I feel when I watch this,” Titmus wrote.

Titmus called the ad a “kick in the face” to women who had dedicated their lives to their sport and to women who love sports for “teamwork, friendship, dedication, excellence, unity.”

Retired U.S. gymnast Gracie Kramer, describing a career spent in a sport where female athletes have had to fight being reduced to their bodies, called the ad “infuriating” on Instagram Stories.

Kramer said the campaign “feels like a massive step backward.”

Boxer Skye Nicolson wrote on Instagram that the campaign made a “mockery” of female athletes, while separating athletic sex appeal from using sex to sell sports.

“There’s a big difference between looking ‘sexy’ because you do sport compared to use sex to sell ‘sport’,” Nicolson wrote.

Kelly Stafford, wife of reigning NFL MVP and Los Angeles Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford, amplified the same argument Monday when she shared influencer Daniel Hong’s video to her Instagram Story.

Stafford added, “THIS THIS THIS THIS.”

Hong, speaking over a Sweeney photo, said girls should learn early that being noticed is not the same as being valued.

“Appearance can get you attention: likes, comments, followers, money, opportunities,” Hong said. “All of that is very real. What I want them to understand is that attention and value are not the same thing.”

Sweeney’s public explanation of the ad sounded far lighter than the criticism around it.

“The campaign was about embracing a fun idea,” Sweeney said last week.

She described the concept as a sports-first joke built with confidence and humor.

“The concept is simple: cut through the noise and put the focus entirely on sports. The campaign brings that idea to life with confidence, humor and a playful edge,” Sweeney said.

Novig founder and CEO Jacob Fortinsky said Sweeney, who owns an equity stake in the company, pushed for the nude concept herself.

Fortinsky told Front Office Sports that Novig’s sports-only prediction model appealed to Sweeney because other platforms included markets tied to personal subjects.

“She said, “I’m uncomfortable with other platforms that have markets on what colour underwear I’m going to wear,”” Fortinsky recalled.

Fortinsky said Sweeney’s ability to pull attention was also part of the strategy.

“Sydney is great at captivating audiences and being the center of attention,” Fortinsky said. “In some sense, it forces us into the national discourse.”

Sweeney told Complex that she wants endorsement deals where she can collaborate rather than simply pose for a brand.

“I’ve always believed that the best partnerships are the ones where everyone’s getting to collaborate,” Sweeney said. “I don’t like to just put my face on something. I really want to be able to get into the weeds of it with an amazing team. And I got to meet the Novig team.”

The Novig fight gave Sweeney another ad-cycle mess after last year’s American Eagle jeans campaign turned into a culture-war brawl.

That campaign used the tagline “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans,” along with a “jeans” and “genes” pun that critics said promoted eugenics.

Sweeney later told GQ that she had not expected the ad to become big enough to cause a national upraor.

“I did a jean ad… I mean, the reaction definitely was a surprise, but I love jeans,” Sweeney said.

“All I wear are jeans. I’m literally in jeans and a T-shirt every day of my life.”

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