Sydney Sweeney slams women who attack women in Hollywood: disheartening

Sydney Sweeney inadvertently found herself at the center of the news earlier this year after veteran Hollywood producer Carol Baum said Sweeney is “not pretty” and “can’t act” — then slammed Sweeney’s hit rom-com “Anyone but You” as “unwatchable.” A rep for the actor fired back at Baum at the time, slamming the producer for having the audacity to “attack another woman.” Now, Sweeney himself addressed the incident in a new interview with Vanity Fair.

“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 happens. 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. Then everyone 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 it out. I’m just trying my best here. Why am I being attacked?”

Baum, a longtime Hollywood producer and executive behind films including “Dead Ringers,” “Father of the Bride” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” made the disparaging comments about Sweeney during a discussion in Pleasantville, N.Y., with the New York Times film critic. Janet Maslin.

“I don’t understand Sydney Sweeney,” Baum said during the conversation. “I said to my class, ‘Explain this girl to me. She’s not pretty, she can’t act. Why is she so hot?’ Nobody had an answer.”

Sweeney’s rep shared a statement with Black soon after, Baum’s criticism went viral, reading: “How sad that a woman capable of sharing her expertise and experience instead chooses to attack another woman. If this is what she has learned in her decades in the business and feels, it is appropriate to teach one’s students, it is shameful. To unfairly disparage a female producer speaks volumes for Ms. Baum’s character.”

Go over to Vanity Fair website to read Sweeney’s latest interview in full.