Sydney Sweeney Just Called Out Hollywood Hypocrisy

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Hollywood actress Sydney Sweeney is learning that silence can be louder than words. The Euphoria and The Housemaid star says she’s been labeled a “MAGA Barbie” by people who don’t know her, and she’s tired of being used as a political pawn. “I’ve never been here to talk about politics. I’ve always been here to make art,” she told Cosmopolitan. That sounds simple enough, but in today’s entertainment industry, separating art from activism seems almost impossible.

Social media critics twist her refusal to play the political game into proof she’s hiding something. When asked why she doesn’t just deny the label, she admitted there’s no winning. “If I say, ‘That’s not true,’ they’ll come at me like, ‘You’re just saying that to look better.’ There’s no winning. There’s never any winning. I just have to continue being who I am, because I know who I am.” Think about that for a second—why does a young actress need to pledge loyalty to any political side to be left alone?

Last year’s firestorm over her “great genes/jeans” ad for American Eagle shows how absurd the outrage machine has become. The campaign, praised even by Donald Trump as “fantastic,” somehow turned into accusations of “subliminal white supremacy.” The Guardian made headlines pointing to Sweeney’s alleged Republican registration in Florida, but since when is registering to vote in America a scandal? She stayed quiet then, too, because what good could come from joining the shouting match?

“It’s definitely not a comfortable thing to have people saying what you believe or think, especially when that doesn’t align with you,” Sweeney told Cosmopolitan. “It’s been a weird thing having to navigate and digest, because it’s not me. None of it is me.” That sounds like a person trying to live freely in a world where cancel culture can’t allow it.

Critics say she’s “obviously Republican,” as if that alone is a crime in Hollywood. But maybe Sweeney just wants to keep her personal life personal. Isn’t that what privacy is supposed to mean? She owes no one her ballot choices, and yet the mob demands them. Maybe the real question isn’t what Sydney Sweeney believes, but why some people can’t stand the idea that she keeps it to herself.

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