Sydney Sweeney has discussed her honest reaction to OnlyFans after her Euphoria character created an account on the platform during the drama’s third and final season.
The 28-year-old actor portrayed Cassie Howard in the HBO series, which has now concluded following the finale of its final season on 31 May, 2026.
Warning: spoilers ahead for Euphoria season three.
In season three, the story jumped forward by several years and followed Cassie as she tried to raise money for her extravagant wedding to Nate Jacobs, played by Jacob Elordi, by launching an OnlyFans account.
The plotline resulted in a number of divisive moments, including scenes featuring nudity, sex and fetish content. One sequence showed Cassie dressed as a baby for a shoot, while the season also included montages of her producing content for subscribers.
Sweeney has now addressed both the OnlyFans storyline and the wider conversation around how often her role involves intimate or nude scenes.
Speaking to Vanity Fair after the finale, Sweeney explained that Euphoria creator Sam Levinson sent her the scripts containing Cassie’s scenes before they talked them through together.
“He sent me all the scripts and it already had all of Cassie’s scenes in it, the OnlyFans scenes,” she told the outlet, “and he called me afterwards, and he was talking about it, and we talking through it all.
“He asked me how I felt about it, and I told him, ‘Look, I’m playing a character’.”
Cassie’s arc in the final season sparked debate among viewers, with some arguing that the repeated nude and fetish-focused scenes amounted to a ‘humiliation ritual’ for Sweeney. Others defended the actor’s performance and said the scenes were intended to underline Cassie’s desperate need for attention, fame and validation.
Some criticism also came from people in the adult-content industry, who argued that the show risked playing into negative stereotypes about sex work by framing Cassie’s online career through humiliation and increasingly extreme requests.
Sharing her own view on Cassie’s choices, Sweeney said: “Do I agree with all of Cassie’s decisions? Would I personally make these choices? No, of course not.
“But I’m an actor and that’s my job and this is Cassie’s life and to be able to do her justice and play her how she’s to be played is to bring Sam’s vision to life and to play Cassie in the most vulnerable and insane way possible.”
Levinson has also defended the creative decision, saying in interviews that he wanted to lean into the absurdity of Cassie’s OnlyFans world rather than present it as straightforward glamour. He explained that the production used details such as ring lights and wider shots of Cassie’s home to contrast the fantasy she was trying to sell with the more depressing reality around her.
According to Levinson, he had initially considered shooting some of Cassie’s season three material without nudity, but Sweeney questioned whether that would make sense for a character whose storyline revolved around making adult content.
The actor has previously spoken about having input on Cassie’s nude scenes. In a 2022 interview, she said there had been moments earlier in the series when she told Levinson she did not think nudity was necessary, and that he did not push back when she asked for it to be removed.
Sweeney also reflected on what drives Cassie throughout the series, suggesting that much of her behaviour comes from a deep desire for approval.
“From the very beginning, you can see that Cassie has this need to be loved. She has a need to be validated by other people.
“She doesn’t know how to love herself unless someone else loves her.”
She added: “I think she was more excited by the idea of all these people loving her and knowing who she is and feeling like her world isn’t small.”
The final season also revealed that Cassie and Nate’s relationship had continued well beyond high school, with Sweeney saying Levinson had hinted years earlier that the pair would end up together in some form.
By the end of the finale, Cassie was still trying to make money from adult content even after her OnlyFans account had been dismantled, while the show closed out several other major storylines, including the fate of Zendaya’s Rue.
After the finale aired, Sweeney appeared to respond to the online backlash by sharing behind-the-scenes images from the season on Instagram alongside the caption: “It’s called… acting.”