Before dawn, actress Sidney Sweeney was in the weight room. By midday, she was kickboxing. At night, she returned to the bench press for a final round. In preparation to play trailblazing boxer Christy Martin, the actress gained thirty pounds and reshaped her entire body. “I was so strong,” she said in a recent profile. “Like crazy strong.”
But before the transformation had a press tour — before the magazine spreads and posed photos — there were murmurs. In December, paparazzi captured her in a bikini, and the online commentariat did what it always does: spun a woman’s changing body into a morality play. Did Sidney Sweeney lose her figure? one headline asked, in a tone both faux-concerned and faintly delighted. As if being visibly muscular, or simply not waifish, was a form of failure. (For what it’s worth — and maybe this is just my opinion, shared with several group chats — she looked great. Like someone who makes money, in part, off her physique, and has possibly just discovered the pleasure of eating more than one egg for breakfast.)
