Hollywood actor Sydney Sweeney is reportedly engaged to her boyfriend, businessman and investor Scooter Braun, after greater than a yr of relationship. In keeping with In Contact Weekly, an insider has claimed that the couple has taken the main step after the 29-year-old actress moved in with him final month. The couple had been first linked in 2025 after being noticed collectively at Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez’s wedding ceremony.
Scrutiny over the timing
The information comes as Sweeney finds herself dealing with backlash over her new commercial for sports activities prediction market firm Novig. The advert, which was launched final week, options Sweeney posing with totally different sports activities tools whereas sporting little to no clothes. She is seen utilizing or posing with tools related to sports activities together with soccer, basketball, hockey and tennis, with the objects strategically protecting components of her physique.
The marketing campaign has been criticised by a number of athletes and social media customers, who’ve questioned its portrayal of ladies in sport. Critics have argued that the advert sexualises Sweeney whereas utilizing the imagery of sport to advertise a prediction market.
What’s the controversy?
The business has been known as out by many social media customers for sexualising Sweeney with the intention to promote a sports activities prediction platform, with a number of athletes arguing that the marketing campaign shifts consideration away from ladies’s sporting capacity and in direction of their look.
Australian skilled tennis participant Priscilla Hon shared an Instagram Reel on Tuesday questioning the advert’s message. “Sydney Sweeney appears wonderful, and actually good for her. However this isn’t about her or her physique,” she wrote, earlier than arguing that sport ought to educate younger ladies that their our bodies are about what they will “DO”, relatively than how they give the impression of being.
Australian Olympic water polo silver medallist Tilly Kearns additionally criticised the marketing campaign. In a social media put up, she described her response to Sweeney’s business in robust phrases, whereas highlighting the trouble and dedication concerned in being an expert athlete.
4-time Olympic gold medallist Ariarne Titmus has additionally spoken out in opposition to the marketing campaign. In a put up on Instagram, she wrote that she was “infuriated” by the advert and questioned why the sexualisation of ladies’s our bodies continues for use in sports activities advertising. Beforehand, British sprinter Amy Hunt and different feminine athletes had additionally voiced their considerations over the marketing campaign.
Sweeney’s response to backlash
As an alternative of instantly addressing the criticism, Sweeney shared a sequence of posts on her Instagram Tales showing to attract comparisons with earlier photographs of feminine athletes posing nude.
She posted photographs that includes sports activities stars together with Serena Williams, Ronda Rousey and Sue Fowl, all of whom have appeared nude in shoots or campaigns over time. The posts appeared to spotlight that Sweeney is just not the primary public determine to make use of nudity in a sports-related marketing campaign.
The response, nevertheless, additionally drew criticism, with commentators arguing that comparisons with initiatives akin to ESPN’s Physique Challenge overlook the totally different contexts during which the pictures had been created. A Firstpost evaluation additionally criticised Sweeney’s obvious comparability with Serena Williams’ ESPN Physique Challenge, describing it as an try to borrow credibility from skilled athletes.
In the meantime, Sweeney has defended her involvement within the Novig marketing campaign. In an interview with Advanced, she described the idea as playful and stated she had been carefully concerned with the venture. She can be a strategic companion and fairness holder in Novig. The corporate’s CEO, Jacob Fortinsky, has stated Sweeney approached Novig concerning the partnership and had important inventive involvement within the marketing campaign. The controversy follows the backlash Sweeney confronted over her 2025 American Eagle marketing campaign, which additionally grew to become the topic of intense debate on-line.