Sydney Sweeney, 27, has broken her silence on the swirling speculation that music mogul Scooter Braun, 45, is orchestrating her career moves.
The “Euphoria” star signed with CAA earlier this month after parting ways with longtime reps at ImPRint PR, and the timing has fueled gossip that Braun — whom she began dating shortly after his divorce from Yael Cohen — has been brokering her deals behind the scenes. An industry source who knows the couple said that “Sydney absolutely listens to Scooter” and that “Scooter has absolutely been helping to broker her deals.”
Yet a close friend of the actress pushed back hard on the notion that Braun has rattled her inner circle. “Sydney has had the same group around her for years. Stewart Brookman is the only lawyer she’s ever had. Jennifer Millar was her longtime agent before becoming her manager in November 2025, and Hannah Tenenbaum has been her brand agent from the beginning. Despite some of the chatter, no one on her team is ‘shaken up,'” the pal said.
The romance itself became public after the pair met at Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez’s Venetian wedding in June 2025, just as Sweeney’s engagement to producer Jonathan Davino ended. Braun initially dismissed the age gap to friends, saying she was too young for him, but he later posted an emotional Instagram tribute on her 29th birthday calling her “the woman who is the exception to every rule” and writing that she had shown him what a “true partnership” looks like.
The debate over who controls Sweeney’s image intensified this month with her near-naked Novig billboard campaign in Times Square, where she posed strategically covered by footballs and basketballs for the sports prediction market. Novig CEO Jacob Fortinsky said this week that Sweeney herself drove much of the creative direction after approaching the company about an equity partnership. “It really was Sydney who was driving a lot of the visuals and the messaging,” he said.
That campaign landed her in hot water with female athletes. Former US gymnast Gracie Kramer responded by posting footage of herself competing with the caption: “idk what Sydney Sweeney was doing, but this is what a woman in sports looks like.” International rugby player Sofie Fella called the campaign “disrespectful” to women who have spent years trying to separate female athletic achievement from expectations about their appearance. “Instead of paying female athletes properly or instead of putting it into the women’s sports economy, we’re spending money making ads like this?” she said.
Sweeney did not retreat. She responded on Instagram with photographs of celebrated sportswomen, including Serena Williams, who have themselves posed nude.
This pattern of provocation predates Braun entirely. Last year she partnered with Dr. Squatch to sell soap made using her bathwater, crashing the company’s website. Then came American Eagle’s “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans” campaign in July 2025, which prompted accusations of racial insensitivity and catering to the male gaze. Sweeney later said she had been shocked by the fallout, saying, “Anyone who knows me knows that I’m always trying to bring people together. I’m against hate and divisiveness.”
Rachel Richardson, writer of the pop culture Substack “Highly Flammable,” said that the idea anyone but Sweeney masterminds her image is misguided. “She knows exactly what she’s doing and has a long history of baiting audiences to get attention,” Richardson said. “Indeed, this has become something of an annual tradition,” Richardson added, “At every turn Sweeney could have retreated. And yet here she is again almost naked, promoting a sports prediction site. The idea that control over Sweeney’s image is masterminded by anyone but her is wild to me. Her love of provocation predates her relationship with Braun and can be seen even in her early acting role choices.”
The business case for Sweeney calling her own shots is strong. She launched lingerie brand SYRN — backed by Coatue Management, which has received $1 billion in funding from Bezos and Dell CEO Michael Dell — and has served as producer on several films through her company Fifty-Fifty Films, including the $210 million-grossing “Anyone But You” and the nearly $400 million-grossing “The Housemaid.” An insider familiar with the star said she “has been in charge of her own career from the beginning” and that “the decisions she makes are hers.”
The insider also noted a perceived double standard in the scrutiny. “There is a double standard in questioning whether a man is somehow directing her career. If the roles were reversed, I’m not sure anyone would ask who was ‘in charge’ of a successful male actor’s career or attribute his decisions to the woman he was dating,” the insider said. Sweeney will next appear in “The Housemaid’s Secret,” out in December, followed by the Netflix animated film “Gundam” and “Hollow” from Margot Robbie’s Lucky Chap banner.
