Sydney Sweeney has debunked the entertainment industry’s message about female empowerment.
It comes after a female producer in Hollywood is said to have disparaged the Anyone But You star’s physical appearance and talent earlier this year.
“It’s very disheartening to see women tear other women down, especially when women who are successful in other avenues of their industry see younger talent working really hard – hoping to achieve whatever dreams that they may have – and then trying to bash and discredit any work that they’ve done,” the 27-year-old told Vanity Fair as part of its Hollywood issue.
“This entire industry, all people say is ‘Women empowering other women’. None of it’s happening.
“All of it is fake and a front for all the other shit that they say behind everyone’s back.”
The two-time Emmy Award nominee said that there are “so many studies and different opinions on the reasoning behind it”.
“I’ve read that our entire lives, we were raised – and it’s a generational problem – to believe only one woman can be at the top,” Sweeney said.
“There’s one woman who can get the man. There’s one woman who can be, I don’t know, anything.
“So then all the others feel like they have to fight each other or take that one woman down instead of being like, Let’s all lift each other up.
“I’m still trying to figure it out. I’m just trying my best over here. Why am I getting attacked?”
In April, Father Of The Bride and Buffy The Vampire Slayer producer Carol Baum reportedly critiqued Sweeney while speaking with a New York Times film critic before a screening of her 1988 film Dead Ringers.
During the conversation, Baum is said to have referenced the production class she teaches at the USC School of Cinematic Arts, saying: “I said to my class ‘explain this girl to me. She’s not pretty, she can’t act. Why is she so hot?’.”
A representative for Sweeney later told the PA news agency: “How sad that a woman in the position to share her expertise and experience chooses instead to attack another woman.
“If that’s what she’s learned in her decades in the industry and feels is appropriate to teach to her students, that’s shameful.
“To unjustly disparage a fellow female producer speaks volumes about Ms Baum’s character.”
Sweeney, who rose to fame in HBO’s Euphoria and The White Lotus, recently starred in Madame Web opposite Dakota Johnson and Anyone But You with Glen Powell.
The 26-year-old also starred in the music video for The Rolling Stones single Angry released last year, describing the experience as “the biggest thing ever”.
Sweeney appeared in black leather on a red convertible as it drove along Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles and appeared at the world premiere of the British band’s album Hackney Diamonds.
