Actress Sydney Sweeney criticizes ‘fake’ female empowerment in Hollywood

CNN
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Hollywood star Sydney Sweeney has hit out at what she calls “false” statements about female empowerment in the entertainment industry.

Sweeney made the comments in an interview with Vanity Fair published Wednesday, in response to widely reported comments from Hollywood producer Carol Baum earlier this year, who said Sweeney is “not pretty” and “can’t act.”

At the time, Sweeney’s team released a statement calling the comments “disgraceful.”

Now the actress and producer has hit back at herself, linking the disparaging remarks to what she says is a wider problem in the industry.

“It’s very disheartening to see women tearing other women down, especially when women who are successful in other ways in their industry see younger talent working really hard – hoping to achieve whatever dreams they may have – and then trying to bash and discredit any work they’ve done,” Sweeney said.

“This whole industry, everyone says, is ‘women empowering other women’. None of that is happening. It’s all fake and a front for all the other crap they say behind everyone’s back.”

“I mean, there are so many studies and different opinions about the reasoning behind it,” she continued.

“I’ve read that our whole lives we were brought up – and it’s a generational problem – to believe that only one woman can be on top. There’s one woman who can get the man. There’s one woman who can be , I don’t know, whatever,” Sweeney said.

“So then everybody else feels like they have to fight each other or take that one woman down instead of saying, ‘Let’s all lift each other up.’ I’m still trying to figure that out. I’m just trying my best here. Why am I being attacked?”

Sweeney, whose roles in “Euphoria” and “The White Lotus” earned her two Emmy nominations, is currently working on a biopic about the famous boxer Christy Martinand in October shared an update about the project on Instagram.

In the post, Sweeney wrote that she has “become immersed in training to bring the story of an incredible woman to life.”

She shared two photos of herself on set wearing a red muscle T-shirt that showed off the physical results of her workout, along with a ’90s-style curly hairstyle.

In the caption, Sweeney went on to describe Martin – widely regarded as the most successful female boxer and a trailblazer for the inclusion of women in the sport – as a “true champion who fought battles both in and out of the ring.”