What To Know
- Sydney Sweeney is facing backlash for appearing nude in a new Novig sports betting ad.
- Social media users criticized the commercial for being regressive for women.
- Sweeney defended the campaign as focusing on sports with confidence and humor.
A year after her American Eagle ad campaign landed her in hot water, Sydney Sweeney is once again courting controversy with a new ad. This time, she’s promoting the sports prediction market Novig in a commercial viewers call “disgusting” and “inappropriate.”
In the minute-long spot — which Novig posted to YouTube and social media channels earlier this week — the Euphoria star poses nude and uses sports equipment to cover portions of her body as she emphasizes that Novig is a betting platform for sports and nothing else.
“Novig is just sports. So they wanted to show? Just sports,” she says in the ad. “No betting on wars or deaths and no politics. Just you, your takes, and sports.”
And in Instagram comments, viewers were calling foul.
“By far the worst commercial I have ever seen,” one person wrote.
“Why is no one understanding how disgusting this is…” said another.
Novig/YouTube
One Instagram commenter said the commercial is “setting women back 100 years,” and another called it “one step up for Sydney Sweeney [and] ten steps down for women.”
Someone else commented, “This is not it, Sydney. The women do not stand with you.”
Meanwhile, in a comment liked over 20,000 times, one user wrote, “Love how @instagram allows for stuff like this, but the moment I post something in a bikini, the post is removed.”
Other social media users called the ad “pathetic,” “sad,” “inappropriate,” and said it is “exactly why women in sports aren’t taken seriously,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Sweeney seems to be a fan of the campaign, though. “The concept is simple: cut through the noise and put the focus entirely on sports,” she said in a statement, THR reports. “The campaign brings that idea to life with confidence, humor and a playful edge.”
The Novig ad backlash comes a year after Sweeney made national news with her American Eagle ads, which riffed on “genes” and “jeans” being homophones and stoked accusations of white supremacy.