Did a viral TikTok video show the actor Sydney Sweeney responding to backlash over her role in a controversial American Eagle ad campaign? No, that's not true: Sweeney posted the video in question more than four years earlier. At the time, she was responding to trending Twitter posts critical of her appearance. The American Eagle campaign was not launched until July 2025.
The TikTok video (archived here) was published by @officialeditspage on July 30, 2025 and garnered more than 17 million views in just four days. It was captioned with these hashtags:
how do we feel?? #sydneysweeney #americaneagle #jeans #sydneysweeneyamericaneaglejeansad #jeansad #sydeneysweeneyjeans #fake #ragebait
Additional captioning on the video read:
Sydney Sweeney responds to American Eagle campaign
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Image Source: screenshot of @officialeditspage post on TikTok by Lead Stories)
Sweeney's May 8, 2021 Instagram livestream was no longer available, as of August 4, 2025. However, a copy of it was posted on YouTube on May 9, 2021 (archived here) by the @iglivestv5024 channel. In that version of the video, starting at 0:17 seconds, Sweeney says:
So apparently I am trending on Twitter right now for being ugly and I would never actually do this, like ever. But I think it's really important for people to see how words actually affect people, and I know everyone says like, "You can't read things, and you shouldn't read things." But like, I'm a fucking person. I'm just sitting here with my dog Tank, watching HGTV, wearing my snuggie. Like I don't know, people need to be nicer on social media.
This is how that video appeared on YouTube at the time of writing:
(Image Source: screenshot of @iglivestv5024 post on Youtube by Lead Stories)
Sydney Sweeney posted the video promotion, a paid partnership with American Eagle, (pictured below) on Instagram on July 23, 2025.
(Image Source: screenshot of sydney_sweeney post on Instagram by Lead Stories)
Other fact checks
Lead Stories has debunked additional false claims about the American Eagle ad campaign featuring Sweeney here and here.
