Sydney Sweeney's Nude Novig Ad Sparks Athlete Backlash — SkimNews
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- Sydney Sweeney appeared nude in a new ad for sports trading app Novig, using sports equipment for coverage, prompting swift backlash from elite female athletes within days of its release.
- Ariarne Titmus, a four-time Olympic gold medalist and former Australian swimming champion, called the ad "a kick in the face to every woman" who dedicated her life to perfecting her sport.
- British sprinter Amy Hunt, a four-time European champion, condemned the ad in a BBC interview immediately after running a season's best in the 200m final at the Ultimate Championship in Budapest, highlighting Melissa Jefferson-Wooden's 21.47-second winning time — the fourth fastest ever at the distance.
- American gymnast Gracie Kramer posted a highlight reel that surpassed one million likes, captioned: "Idk what Sydney Sweeney was doing, but this is what a woman in sports looks like."
- Sweeney defended the campaign in a statement on the Novig website, saying the concept aimed to "cut through the noise and put the focus entirely on sports," and responded to critics by posting ESPN Body Issue covers to her Instagram story.
- The Novig controversy comes just over a year after American Eagle's "Sydney Sweeney has great jeans" campaign, which drew criticism for language some said evoked eugenics.
Why it matters: This is Sweeney's second major ad controversy in just over a year following the American Eagle campaign, establishing a pattern where her endorsements become culture-war flashpoints. Olympians and European champions publicly rejecting the sexualization framing gives the backlash an institutional weight that typical celebrity-ad outrage rarely achieves.
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