Megyn Kelly accused Sydney Sweeney for “bending the knee” to Hollywood after the star distanced herself from far-out interpretations of her headline-making ad campaign for American Eagle.
Sweeney, 28, recently told People she was “honestly surprised by the reaction” from some quarters — with lefties bizarrely claiming she’d been promoting eugenics through the campaign’s play on the phrase, “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans.”
“I did it because I love the jeans and love the brand,” the “Housemaid” star told the magazine.
Sydney Sweeney has “bent the knee” to Hollywood by granting an interview to “woke” People magazine, according to Megyn Kelly. Megyn Kelly / YouTube“I don’t support the views some people chose to connect to the campaign. Many have assigned motives and labels to me that just aren’t true,” she added.
That didn’t sit well with Kelly.
“We just had a debate on the show privately about whether that was her backtracking or bending the knee which I maintained it was,” she said on the Wednesday installment of her SiriusXM podcast, adding that “Hollywood, her agents, her PR people the casting directors, the moneymen … got to her because her messaging sounds very different.”
Kelly said Sweeney’s interview with People marked a shift from the confidence the star had projected when the controversy first erupted over her pun-filled American Eagle spot.
Sweeney, the 27-year-old sex symbol whose marketing campaign for American Eagle jeans elicited praise from President Trump and his MAGA followers, told People she was “honestly surprised by the reaction.” American Eagle
“I did it because I love the jeans and love the brand,” Sweeney told the magazine. American Eagle“She sounds different,” Kelly said.
The host then read aloud from Sweeney’s statement to People, which she attacked as both politically loaded and strategically limp.
“I don’t know if people know this, but People magazine is woke and f–king annoying … truly, they hate conservatives,” Kelly fumed.
Sweeney’s remarks emphasized unity.
“Anyone who knows me knows that I’m always trying to bring people together I’m against hate and divisiveness,” she told People.
“Recently I have come to realize that my silence regarding this issue has only widened the divide not closed it,” she added.
Kelly said Sweeney’s statement is “as close as she will get, I guess, to telegraphing ‘I don’t agree with the Republican crazies who backed me and I’m not a white supremacist.'”
The uproar began in July when American Eagle released an ad featuring the blond-haired, blue-eyed bombshell uttering: “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring … My jeans are blue.”
Some critics blasted the line as an echo of eugenics rhetoric, even going so far as to call the ad “Nazi propaganda.”
Kelly opened her critique of Sweeney by blasting the actress for changing her tone after weeks of silence that had fueled the right’s full-throated defense of the denim campaign. American Eagle
Kelly said Sweeney’s interview with People marked a clear shift from the confidence she projected when the controversy first erupted over her pun-filled American Eagle spot. Sydney Sweeney / InstagramConservatives pounced on the backlash, framing it as the latest front in the culture war. President Trump called Sweeney’s spot “fantastic” and praised the actress for being a registered Republican.
Vice President JD Vance mocked Dems for thinking, “everybody who thinks Sydney Sweeney is attractive is a Nazi.”
American Eagle saw a stock bump during the furor, which conservatives celebrated as evidence that standing firm against “woke” criticism pays off.
The Post has sought comment from Sweeney.
