Does an authentic video capture actress Sydney Sweeney breaking her silence about the controversy over her American Eagle "good jeans" ad? No, that's not true: The video contains a last-frame disclaimer that it is "Unreal." The video was first posted to an X account that routinely releases deepfake/AI-generated videos that show prominent people commenting on current events in shocking or humorous ways.
The AI video appeared in a July 31, 2025 X.com post (archived here) on the @MaverickDarby account. It was titled: "Sydney Sweeney breaks her silence after the American Eagle controversy." It continued:
This is either a PR nightmare or a PR masterclass. Unreal.
This is what the opening frame of the video post looked like on X at the time this fact check was written:
(Source: Screenshot by Lead Stories of x.com/MaverickDarby post.)
The "MaverickDarby" account tells viewers when a post is fake or AI, usually in the final frames of the video. In this case, the 43-second video ends with this disclaimer: "Unreal: lacking in reality, substance, or genuineness."
(Source: Screenshot by Lead Stories of end of video posted x.com/MaverickDarby.)
In the fake video, the AI Sweeney says:
It has come to my attention that, like, fat ugly chicks are upset by my American Eagle ad and that's like, honestly, so funny because fashion is only for attractive people. I mean, who are you kidding, like, I'm sorry you're disgusting but this product, um, yeah, it's not for you. Liberal women are such spteful bitches sometimes, but it's, like, not their fault, I guess. Some of them are just born hideous, and that's, like, tough. Also just want to say that throughout this ad campaign people have been guessing my political views and I, against the wishes of my, um, publicist, am going to share that I'm way more right-wing than you could ever imagine.
Comments like that, with politically incorrect phrases like "fat chicks" and "you're disgusting" would have been extensively reported if she said them.
To cross-check, Lead Stories searched Google News' index of thousands of news sites for reporting on Sweeney commenting on the American Eagle controversy. No such stories were surfaced in the search. (archived here). Lead Stories also searched the Yahoo! News index of news services and its partner sites. Only news of the parody surfaced, not fact-based reporting on a Sweeney public statement "breaking her silence" or attacking her critics (archived here).
Readers interested in other Lead Stories fact checks about posts by MaverickDarby will find them, and examples of the account's disclosure of AI-generation, collected here.
