Is Zendaya refusing to do Euphoria press with Sydney Sweeney?
These two talented actresses have known and worked with each other for years on the HBO hit.
However, after Sweeney’s months of controversies (which may have contributed to a theatrical flop), is her brand too toxic?
A new report says that Zendaya worries about just that as their hit series is poised to return for Season 3.
Is Zendaya refusing to do press with Sydney Sweeney?
On Tuesday, November 11, The Daily Mail reported that Zendaya is refusing to do press with Sydney Sweeney.
Next year, Euphoria Season 3 will (finally) come out.
As is the case with most shows, the HBO drama will require promotional work by much of the cast.
And Zendaya, Sweeney, and co-star Hunter Schafer are undoubtedly the most famous women on the list.
Zendaya’s reasons for avoiding Sweeney, according to the report, include the latter’s status as symbolic darling of Donald Trump’s MAGA supporters following her jeans ad controversy — and her refusal to disavow these people.
“It’s no wonder she’s refusing to do it,” an inside source commented to The Daily Mail.
“It’s a difficult position for Zendaya to be in,” the insider reasoned.
The source explained that it’s challenging “because if she even stands next to Sydney on the red carpet, it can be read as her excusing Sydney’s views on Trump and her refusal to apologize for the racist ad.”
That is to say that it doesn’t have to be personal animosity behind the reported reluctance to appear at the same events.
When one person’s brand becomes linked to a cognitively impaired authoritarian with credible implications of involvement in the world’s most notorious pedophile’s crimes, the bad press can rub off onto others.
2025 has not been her year
This summer, Zendaya was clearly not the only person to notice that Sydney Sweeney had a bit of controversy. The entire world took note.
It began with a controversial American Eagle jeans ad in which Sweeney posed seductively while the ad quipped about her “good jeans.”
The last bit was a deliberate pun about genetics … which sounded an awful lot like a eugenics dogwhistle.
It didn’t have to be a big deal. If there had been hasty apologies, it could have blown over instantly. But there weren’t.
Perhaps because of the lack of apology and the sheer number of white nationalists running the US federal government right now, people were not up to giving Sweeney or American Eagle the benefit of the doubt.
According to Sweeney, she was simply too busy filming Euphoria to react to the controversy.
Not the best PR move, to be sure, but that’s fair.
But when the worst people alive praised Sweeney and the ad and when reports came out saying that she registered (years ago) as a Republican, the pressure to disavow Trump and white nationalism grew.
Remember, not only are many of Sweeney’s fans targets of the Trump regime, but so are her coworkers — including Schafer, as we reported earlier this year.
There are controversies where a public figure would be wiser to avoid speaking out and letting it blow over. But when it doesn’t blow over, staying quiet is the wrong call.
Is Sydney Sweeney a bad person?
It is always possible that a public figure — no matter how skilled, no matter how famously beautiful — might be a bad person.
Some actively hide their malice with positive contributions to political and philanthropic causes. Others simply mask their malevolence with silence.
But not everyone who is silent on a topic (no matter how important) is staying quiet because they are evil. Sometimes, they just don’t feel that they know enough about a subject to properly weigh in.
Other times, they’re just afraid of what feels like a no-win scenario. And that, we think, is where Zendaya and Sydney Sweeney differ in their PR strategies. Sweeney likely fears that speaking out will have a bunch of people hating her, so she opts for silence.
Zendaya faces rumors without weighing in. But she is outspoken on matters of grave importance, like Trump’s campaign of terror against the American people.
We of course cannot verify whether Zendaya will actually decline to walk the red carpet with Sweeney. No matter what, we hope that Sweeney will consider that having a bunch of bad people mad at her would not be as bad as having a bunch of good people mad at her. On some topics, remaining silent is a statement all on its own.